"5^'^ 

"> 


X^^v. 


y 


'Keransiflan  and  I,  sitting  on 
our  wheelbarrow,  were  al- 
lowed to  go  on  eating  in  peace  " 


Q^   Gliildfiood 


ifV) 


Zittarw 


nne  .Dou^lad  ^eogwick 

with  illudtzaliond  by 

Jjaul    ae   JoeAiie 


yjke  Genturif   &0. 

'9' 9 


Copyright,  1918,  1919,  by 
The  Centuey  Co. 


Published,  October,  1919 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  QuiMPER  AND  Bonne  Maman     ....  3 

II  Eliane 32 

III  The  Fete  at  Ker-Eliane 41 

IV  The  Old  House  at  Landerneau    ...  50 
V  Tante  Rose 61 

VI  The  Demoiselles  de  Coatnamprun     .      .  7^ 

VII  Bon  Papa 88 

VIII  Le  Marquis  de  Ploeuc 93 

IX  Loch-ar-Brugg 107 

X  The  Pardon  at  Folgoat 134 

XI  Bonne  Maman's  Death 140 

XII  The  Journey  from  Brittany  ....  147 


A  CHILDHOOD  IN 
BRITTANY 


This  little  sheaf  of  childish  memories  has  been 
put  together  from  many  talks,  in  her  own  tongue, 
with  an  old  French  friend.  The  names  of  her 
relatives  have,  by  her  wish,  been  changed  to  other 
names,  taken  from  their  Breton  properties,  or 
slightly  altered  while  preserving  the  character  of 
the  Breton  original. 


A  CHILDHOOD  IN 
BRITTANY 

CHAPTER  I 

gUIMPER    AND    BONNE    MAMAN 

I  WAS  born  at  Quimper  in  Brittany  on  the  first 
of  August,  1833,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  I  have  been  told  that  I  looked  about  me 
resolutely  and  fixed  a  steady  gaze  on  the  people  in 
the  room,  so  that  the  doctor  said,  "She  is  not  blind, 
at  all  events." 

The  first  thing  I  remember  is  a  hideous  doll  to 
which  I  was  passionately  attached.  It  belonged 
to  the  child  of  one  of  the  servants,  and  my  mother, 
since  I  would  not  be  parted  from  it,  gave  this 
child,  to  replace  it,  a  handsome  doll.  It  had  legs 
stuffed  with  sawdust  and  a  clumsily  painted  card- 
board head,  and  on  this  head  it  wore  a  hourrelet. 

3 


4        A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

The  hourrelet  was  a  balloon-shaped  cap  made  of 
plaited  wicker,  and  was  worn  by  young  children 
to  protect  their  heads  when  they  fell.  We,  too, 
wore  them  in  our  infancy,  and  I  remember  that  I 
was  very  proud  when  wearing  mine  and  that  I 
thought  it  a  very  pretty  head-dress. 

I  could  not  have  been  more  than  three  years  old 
when  I  was  brought  down  to  the  grand  salon  to  be 
shown  to  a  friend  of  my  father's,  an  Englishman, 
on  his  way  to  England  from  India,  and  a  pink  silk 
dress  I  then  wore,  and  my  intense  satisfaction  in  it, 
is  my  next  memory.  It  had  a  stiff  little  bodice 
and  skirt,  and  there  were  pink  rosettes  over  my 
ears.  But  I  could  not  have  been  a  pretty  child, 
for  my  golden  hair,  which  grew  abundantly  in 
later  years,  was  then  very  scanty,  and  my  mouth 
was  large.  I  was  stood  upon  a  mahogany  table, 
of  which  I  still  see  the  vast  and  polished  spaces 
beneath  me,  and  Mr.  John  Dobray,  when  I  was 
introduced  to  him  by  my  proud  father,  said,  "So 
this  is  Sophie." 

Mr.  Dobray  wore  knee-breeches,  silk  stockings, 
and  a  high  stock.     I  see  my  father,  too,  very  tall. 


-J^"l-M^     tl<JS''^'"^'  '^  H'iiN  ■■■'ill  ' 

^\:^m]  ifili-ti::!^]  q'(L''iiil^''ii  i 


fii^ri 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN      7 

robust,  and  fair,  with  the  pleasantest  face.  But 
my  father's  figure  fills  all  my  childhood.  I  was 
his  pet  and  darling.  When  I  cried  and  was 
naughty,  my  mother  would  say:  "Take  your 
daughter.  She  tires  me  and  is  insufferable." 
Then  my  father  would  take  me  in  his  arms  and 
walk  up  and  down  with  me  while  he  sang  me  to 
sleep  with  old  Breton  songs.     One  of  these  ran : 

Jesus  peguen  brasve, 
Plegar  douras  nene; 
Jesus  peguen  brasve, 
Ad  ondar  garan  te ! 

This,  as  far  as  I  remember,  means,  "May  Jesus 
be  happy,  and  may  His  grace  make  us  all  happy." 
At  other  times  my  father  played  strange,  melan- 
choly old  Breton  tunes  to  me  on  a  violin,  which 
he  held  upright  on  his  knee,  using  the  bow  across 
it  as  though  it  were  a  'cello.  He  was,  though  un- 
taught, exceedingly  musical,  and  played  by  ear  on 
the  clavecin  anything  he  had  heard.  It  must  have 
been  from  him  that  I  inherited  my  love  of  music, 
and  I  do  not  remember  the  time  that  I  was  not 
singing. 


8        A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

I  see  myself,  also,  at  the  earliest  age,  held  be- 
fore my  father  on  his  saddle  as  we  rode  through 
woods.  He  wore  an  easy  Byronic  collar  and  al- 
ways went  bareheaded.  He  spent  most  of  his 
time  on  horseback,  visiting  his  farms  or  hunting. 

My  father  was  of  a  wealthy  bourgeois  family 
of  Landemeau,  and  it  must  have  been  his  happy 
character  and  love  of  sport  rather  than  his  wealth 
— he  was  master  of  hounds  and  always  kept  the 
pack — that  made  him  popular  in  Quimper,  for  the 
gulf  between  the  bourgeoisie  and  the  noblesse  was 
almost  impassable.  Yet  not  only  was  he  popular, 
but  he  had  married  my  mother,  who  was  of  an  an- 
cient Breton  family,  the  Rosvals.  One  of  the 
Rosvals  fought  in  the  Combats  de  Trente  -against 
the  English,  and  the  dying  and  thirsty  Beau- 
manoir  to  whom  it  was  said  on  that  historic  day, 
"Bois  ton  sang,  Beaumanoir,"  was  a  cousin  of 
theirs. 

My  mother  was  a  beautiful  woman  with  black 
hair  and  eyes  of  an  intense  dark  blue.  She  was 
unaware  of  her  own  loveliness,  and  was  much 
amused  one  day  when  her  little  boy,  after  gazing 


^ 


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J     ■vjflvlfl      ' 


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V  T' 


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^-M  'K- 


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1,  ■s 


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h  \ 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     ii 

intently  at  her,  said,  ''Maman,  you  are  very  beau- 
tiful." She  repeated  this  remark,  laughing,  to  my 
father,  on  which  he  said,  "Yes,  my  dear,  you  are." 

My  mother  was  extremely  proud,  and  not  at  all 
flattered  that  she  should  be  plain  Mme.  Kerou- 
guet,  although  she  was  devoted  to  my  father  and 
it  was  the  happiest  menage.  I  remember  one  day 
seeing  her  bring  to  my  father,  looking,  for  all  her 
feigned  brightness,  a  little  conscious,  some  new  vis- 
iting-cards she  had  had  printed,  with  the  name  of 
Kerouguet  reduced  to  a  simple  initial,  and  fol- 
lowed by  several  of  the  noble  ancestral  names  of 
her  own  family. 

"What 's  this'?"  said  my  father,  laughing. 

"We  needed  some  new  cards,"  said  my  mother, 
"and  I  dislike  so  much  the  name  of  Kerouguet." 

But  my  father,  laughing  more  than  ever,  said: 

"Kerouguet  you  married  and  Kerouguet  you 
must  remain,"  and  the  new  cards  had  to  be  relin- 
quished. 

My  mother,  with  her  black  hair  and  blue  eyes, 
had  a  charming  nose  of  the  sort  called  "un  nez 
Roxalane."     It  began  very  straight  and  fine,  but 


12      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

had  a  flattened  little  plateau  on  the  tip  which  we 
called  "la  promenade  de  maman.'''  My  memory 
of  her  then  is  of  a  very  active,  gay,  authoritative 
young  woman,  going  to  balls,  paying  and  receiving 
visits,  and  riding  out  with  my  father,  wearing  the 
sweeping  habit  of  those  days  and  an  immense 
beaver  hat  and  plume. 

Quimper  is  an  old  town,  and  the  hotels  of  the 
noblesse^  all  situated  in  the  same  quarter  and  on  a 
steep  street,  were  of  blackened,  crumbling  stone. 
From  portes-cocheres  one  entered  the  courtyards, 
and  the  gardens  behind  stretched  far  into  the  coun- 
try. 

In  the  courtyard  of  our  hotel  was  a  stone  stair- 
case, with  elaborate  carvings,  like  those  of  the 
Breton  churches,  leading  to  the  upper  stories,  but 
for  use  there  were  inner  staircases.  My  mother's 
boudoir,  the  petit  salon^  the  grand  salon^  the  salle- 
a-manger^  and  the  billiard-room  were  on  the 
ground  floor  and  gave  out  upon  the  garden. 

The  high  walls  that  ran  along  the  street  and 
surrounded  the  garden  were  concealed  by  planta- 
tions of  trees,  so  that  one  seemed  to  look  out  into 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     13 

the  country.  Flower  beds  were  under  the  salon- 
windows,  and  there  were  long  borders  of  wild 
strawberries  that  had  been  transplanted  from  the 
woods,  as  my  mother  was  very  fond  of  them. 
Fruit-trees  grew  against  the  walls,  and  beyond  the 
groves  and  flower  beds  and  winding  gravel  paths 
was  an  orchard,  with  apricot-,  pear-,  and  apple- 
trees,  and  the  clear  little  river  Odel,  with  its  wash- 
ing-stones, where  the  laundry-maids  beat  the 
household  linen  in  the  cold,  running  water. 

It  was  pleasant  to  hear  the  clap-clap-clap  on  a 
hot  summer  day.  Is  it  known  that  the  pretty  pied 
water-wagtail  is  called  la  lavan'diere  from  its  love 
of  water  and  its  manner  of  beating  up  and  down 
its  tail  as  our  washerwomen  wield  their  wooden 
beaters? 

Beyond  the  river  were  the  woods  where  I  often 
rode  with  my  father,  and  beyond  the  woods  dis- 
tant ranges  of  mountains.  I  looked  out  at  all  this 
from  my  nursery-windows,  with  their  frame  of 
climbing- roses  and  heliotrope.  Near  my  window 
was  a  great  lime-tree  of  the  variety  known  as 
American.     The  vanilla-like  scent  of  its  flowers 


14      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

was  almost  overpowering,  and  all  this  fragrance 
gave  my  mother  a  headache,  and  she  had  to  have 
her  room  moved  away  from  the  garden  to  another 
part  of  the  house.  How  clearly  I  see  this  room 
of  my  mother's,  with  its  high,  canopied  four-poster 
bed  and  the  pale-gray  paper  on  the  walls  covered 
with  yellow  fleurs-de-lis  I 

The  wall-paper  in  my  father's  room  was  one  of 
the  prettiest  I  have  ever  seen,  black,  all  bespangled 
with  bright  butterflies.  Of  the  grand  salon  I  re- 
member most  clearly  the  high  marble  mantelpiece, 
upheld  by  hounds  sitting  on  their  haunches.  On 
this  mantelpiece  was  a  huge  boule  clock,  two  tall 
candelabra  of  Venetian  glass,  and  two  figures  in 
vieux  Saxe  of  a  marquis  and  a  marquise  that  filled 
us  with  delight.  On  each  side  of  the  fireplace 
were  two  Louis  XV  court  chairs — chairs,  that  is, 
with  only  one  arm,  to  admit  of  the  display  of  the 
great  hoop-skirts  of  the  period.  I  remember,  too, 
our  special  delight  in  the  foot-stools,  which  were 
of  mahogany,  shaped  rather  like  gondolas  and 
cushioned  in  velvet;  for  we  could  sit  inside  them 
and  make  them  rock  up  and  down. 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     15 

The  houses  of  the  noblesse  swarmed  with  serv- 
ants; many  of  them  were  married,  and  their  chil- 
dren, and  even  their  grandchildren,  lived  on  with 
our  family  in  patriarchal  fashion.  Men  and 
maids  all  wore  the  costumes  of  their  respective 
Breton  cantons,  exceedingly  beautiful  some  of 
them,  stiff  with  heavy  embroideries,  the  strange 
caps  of  the  women  fluted  and  ruffled,  adorned  with 
lace,  rising  high  above  their  heads  and  falling  in 
long  lappets  upon  their  shoulders,  or  perched  on 
their  heads  like  butterflies.  These  caps  were  dec- 
orated with  large  gold  pins  and  dangling  golden 
pendants,  and  these  and  the  materials  for  the  cos- 
tumes were  handed  down  in  the  peasants'  families 
from  generation  to  generation.  My  young  nurse 
Jeannie — there  was  an  old  nurse  called  Gertrude 
— wore  a  skirt  of  bright-blue  woolen  stuff  and  a 
black-cloth  bodice  opening  in  a  square  over  a  net 
fichu  thickly  embroidered  with  paillettes  of  every 
color.  Hers  was  the  small  flat  cap  of  Quimper, 
with  the  odd  foolscap  excrescence,  rather  like  the 
horn  of  a  rhinoceros,  curving  forward  over  the 
forehead.     Needless  to  say,  the  servants  did  not 


i6      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

do  their  daily  work  in  this  fine  array;  while  that 
went  on  they  were  enveloped  from  head  to  foot  in 
large  aprons. 

The  servants  and  the  peasants  in  the  Brittany 
of  those  days  had  a  pretty  custom  of  always  using 
the  thou  when  addressing  their  masters  or  the 
Deity,  thus  inverting  the  usual  association  of  this 
mode  of  address;  for  to  each  other  they  said  you^ 
and  on  their  lips  this  was  the  familiar  word,  and 
the  thou  implied  respect.  Our  servants  were  of 
the  peasant  class,  but  service  altered  and  civilized 
them  very  much,  and  while  no  peasant  spoke  any- 
thing but  Breton,  they  talked  in  an  oddly  accented 
French.  I  remember  a  pretty  example  of  this  in  a 
dear  old  man  who  served  my  little  cousin  Guenole 
du  Jacquelot  du  Bois-Laurel.  Guenole  and  I,  be- 
cause of  some  naughtiness,  were  deprived  of  straw- 
berries one  day  at  our  supper,  and  the  fond  old 
man,  grieving  over  the  discomfiture  of  his  little 
master,  said,  or,  rather  chanted,  half  in  condo- 
lence, and  half  in  playful  consolation:  "Oh,  le 
pauvre  Guenole,  que  tu  es  desole  I"  accenting  the  a 
in  a  very  droll  fashion. 


"A  very  stately  autocratic  person" 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     19 

The  servants  were  all  under  the  orders  of  a  very 
stately  autocratic  person,  the  steward  or  major- 
domo.  It  was  he  who  directed  the  service  from 
behind  his  master's  chair  at  the  head  of  the  table 
and  he  who  prescribed  the  correct  costume  for  the 
servants.  His  wife  had  charge  of  Jeannie  and  of 
me;  it  was  she  who,  when  two  little  sisters  and  a 
brother  had  been  added  to  the  family,  took  us 
down  to  our  breakfast  and  supervised  the  meal. 
We  had  it  in  a  little  tower-room  on  the  ground 
floor,  milk  soup  or  gruel  and  the  delicious  bread 
and  butter  of  Brittany. 

We  lunched  and  dined  at  ten  and  five — such 
were  the  hours  of  those  days — with  our  parents  in 
the  dining-room,  and  it  was  here  that  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  figures  of  my  childhood  appears ; 
for  my  devoted  father  brought  me  back  from  Paris 
one  day  a  splendid  mechanical  pony,  life-sized  and 
with  a  real  pony-skin,  the  apparatus  by  which  he 
was  moved  simulating  an  exhilarating  canter. 
Upon  this  steed,  after  dessert,  we  children 
mounted  one  by  one,  and  we  resorted  to  many 
ruses  in  order  to  get  the  first  ride  of  the  day. 


20      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

This  dear  pony  accompanied  all  my  childhood. 
He  lost  his  hair  as  the  result  of  an  unhappy  ex- 
periment we  tried  upon  him,  scrubbing  him  with 
hot  water  and  soap,  one  day  when  we  were  unob- 
served. He  had  a  melancholy  look  after  that,  but 
was  none  the  less  active  and  none  the  less  loved. 
When  I  saw  his  dismembered  body  lying  in  the 
garret  of  a  grand-niece  not  many  years  ago  I  felt  a 
contraction  of  the  heart.  How  he  brought  back 
my  youth,  and  since  that  how  many  generations 
had  ridden  him  I 

We  played  at  being  horses,  too,  driving  each 
other  in  the  garden,  where  we  spent  most  of  our 
days  when  at  Quimper.  Strange  to  say,  even 
while  we  were  thus  occupied,  we  always  wore  veils 
tightly  tied  over  our  bonnets  and  faces  to  preserve 
our  skins  from  the  sun.  We  all  wore,  even  in 
earliest  childhood,  stiff  little  dresses  with  closely 
fitting  boned  bodices.  My  sister  Eliane  was  deli- 
cate and  wore  flannel  next  her  skin;  but  my  only 
underclothing  consisted  of  cambric  chemise,  petti- 
coats, and  drawers,  these  last  reaching  to  my 
ankles  and  terminating  in  frills  that  fell  over  the 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     21 

foot  in  its  little  sandaled  shoe.  When  I  came 
back  from  a  wonderful  stay,  later  on,  of  four  or 
five  years  in  England,  a  visit  that  revolutionized 
my  ideas  of  life,  I  wore  the  easy  dress  of  English 
children,  and  had  bare  arms,  much  to  my  mother's 
dismay.  Another  change  that  England  wrought 
in  me  was  that  I  was  filled  with  discomfort  when 
I  saw  the  peasants  kneeling  before  us  at  Loch-ar- 
Brugg,  our  country  home;  for  in  those  days,  al- 
though the  Revolution  had  passed  over  France,  it 
was  still  the  custom  for  peasants  to  kneel  before 
their  masters,  and  my  mother  felt  it  right  and 
proper  that  they  should  do  so.  I  begged  her  not 
to  allow  it,  but  she  insisted  upon  the  ceremony  to 
her  dying  day,  and  only  when  I  came  as  mistress 
to  Loch-ar-Brugg  with  my  children  and  grandchil- 
dren was  it  discontinued. 

Another  early  memory  is  the  long  row  of  fam- 
ily portraits  in  the  salle-a-manger.  I  think  I  must 
have  looked  up  at  these  from  my  father's  shoulder 
as  he  walked  up  and  down  with  me,  singing  to  me 
while  my  mother  went  on  with  her  interrupted  des- 
sert, for  the  awe  that  some  of  them  inspired  in  me 


22      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

seems  to  stretch  back  to  babyhood.  Some  were  so 
dark  and  severe  that  it  was  natural  they  should 
frighten  a  baby;  but  it  was  a  pastel,  in  flat,  pale 
tones,  of  an  old  lady  with  high  powdered  hair, 
whose  steady,  forbidding  gaze  followed  me  up  and 
down  the  room,  that  frightened  me  most.  This 
was  an  elder  sister  of  my  grandmother's,  a  March'- 
Inder,  who,  dressed  as  a  man,  had  fought  with  her 
husband  and  daughter  in  the  war  of  the  Chouans 
against  the  republic.  Her  husband  was  killed, 
and  her  daughter,  taken  prisoner  by  a  French  offi- 
cer, had  hanged  herself,  so  the  family  story  ran,  to 
escape  insult.  Another  portrait  of  a  great-grand- 
mother enchanted  me  then,  as  it  has  done  ever 
since,  a  charming  young  woman  seated,  with  her 
hands  folded  before  her,  her  golden  hair  unpow- 
dered,  her  dress  of  citron-colored  satin  brocaded 
with  bunches  of  pale,  bright  flowers.  And  there 
was  a  portrait  of  my  grandmother  in  youth,  with 
black  hair  and  eyes  as  black  as  jet.  I  thought 
her  very  ugly,  and  could  never  associate  her  with 
my  dearly  loved  bonne  maman. 

I  must  delay  no  longer  in  introducing  this  most 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     23 

important  member  of  the  family,  my  mother's 
mother,  with  whom  we  lived,  for  the  old  Quimper 
hotel  was  her  dower-house. 

Poor  bonne  maman!  I  see  her  still,  in  her  deep 
arm-chair,  always  dressed  in  a  long  gown  of  puce- 
colored  satin,  a  white  lace  mantilla,  caught  up 
with  a  small  bunch  of  artificial  buttercups,  on  her 
white  hair.  She  wore  white-thread  lace  mittens 
that  reached  to  her  elbows,  and  her  thin,  white 
hands  were  covered  with  old-fashioned  rings. 
My  mother  was  her  favorite  daughter,  and  I,  as 
the  eldest  child  of  this  favorite,  was  specially  cher- 
ished. Both  of  bonne  maman' s  parents  had  been 
guillotined  in  the  Revolution.  I  do  not  think  her 
husband  was  of  much  comfort  to  her.  He  came 
to  Quimper  only  for  short  stays.  He  was  direc- 
teur  des  Fonts  et  chaussees  for  the  district,  but 
also  a  deputy  in  Paris,  and  these  political  duties, 
according  to  him,  gave  him  no  leisure  for  family 
life.  He  was  at  least  ten  years  younger  than 
bonne  manian^  very  gay  and  witty,  Vhomme  du 
monde  in  all  the  acceptations  of  the  term,  full  of 
deference  to  bonne  maman,  whom  he  treated  like 


24      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

a  queen,  with  respectful  salutes  and  gallant  kiss- 
ings  of  the  hand.  He  seemed  very  fond  of  his 
home  at  Quimper  when  he  was  in  it,  but  he  seldom 
graced  it  with  his  presence. 

When  I  went  up  to  see  bonne  maman  in  the 
morning,  she  would  give  me  her  thumb  to  kiss,  an 
odd  formality,  since  she  was  full  of  demonstra- 
tions of  affection  toward  me.  I  did  not  find  the 
salute  altogether  agreeable,  since  bonne  maman 
took  snuff  constantly,  and  her  delicate  thumb  and 
forefinger  were  strongly  impregnated  with  the 
smell  of  tobacco.  Taking  me  on  her  knees,  she 
would  then  very  gravely  ask  to  see  my  little  fin- 
ger, and  when  I  held  it  up,  she  would  scrutinize  it 
carefully,  and  from  its  appearance  tell  me  whether 
I  had  been  good  or  naughty.  Beside  her  chair 
bonne  maman  had  always  a  little  table,  the  round 
polished  top  surrounded  by  a  low  brass  railing. 
On  this  were  ranged  a  number  of  toilet  imple- 
ments, her  glasses,  scent-bottle,  work-bag,  and  va- 
rious knickknacks.  A  very  unique  implement,  I 
imagine,  was  a  little  stick  of  polished  wood,  with  a 
tuft  of  cotton  wool  tied  by  a  ribbon  at  one  end. 


"Bonne  maman  was  devoted 
to  my  father" 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     27 

This  she  used,  when  her  maid  had  powdered  her 
hair  or  face,  to  dust  off  the  superfluous  powder, 
and  I  can  see  her  now,  her  little  mirror  in  one 
hand,  the  ribboned  stick  in  the  other,  turning  her 
head  from  side  to  side  and  softly  brushing  the  tuft 
over  her  brow  and  chin.  The  table  was  always 
carried  down  with  her  to  the  petit  salon^  where,  her 
morning  toilet  over,  she  was  borne  in  her  chair  by 
means  of  the  handles  that  projected  before  and 
behind  it. 

Bonne  maman  had  an  old  carriage,  an  old  horse, 
and  an  old  coachman.  None  of  these  was  ever 
used,  since  she  never  went  out  except  on  Easter 
day,  when  she  was  carried  in  a  sedan-chair  to  hear 
mass  at  the  cathedral  near  by.  The  sedan-chair 
was  gray-green  with  bunches  of  flowers  painted  on 
it,  and  upholstered  with  copper-colored  satin.  It 
was  carried  by  four  bearers  in  full  Breton  costume. 
They  wore  jackets  of  a  bright  light  blue,  beauti- 
fully embroidered  along  the  edges  with  disks  of 
red,  gold,  and  black;  red  sashes,  tied  round  their 
waists,  hung  to  the  knees;  their  full  kneebreeches 
were  white,  their  shoes  black,  and  their  stockings 


28      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

of  white  wool.  Like  all  the  peasants  of  that  time, 
they  wore  their  hair  long,  hanging  over  their 
shoulders,  and  their  large,  round  Breton  hats  were 
of  black  felt  tied  with  a  thick  chenille  cord  of  red, 
blue,  and  black,  which  was  held  to  the  brim  at 
one  side  by  a  golden  fleur-de-lis,  and  that  had  a 
scapular  dangling  from  the  end.  Within  the 
chair  sat  my  grandmother,  dressed,  as  always,  in 
puce  color;  but  this  gala  costume  was  of  brocade, 
flowers  of  a  paler  shade  woven  upon  a  dark 
ground,  and  the  lace  mantilla  of  every-day  wear 
was  replaced  by  a  sort  of  white  tulle  head-dress, 
gathered  high  upon  her  head  and  falling  over  her 
breast  and  shoulders.  I  remember  her  demeanor 
in  church  on  these  great  occasions,  her  gentle  au- 
thority and  receu'illement^  and  the  glance  of  grave 
reproach  for  my  mother,  who  was  occupied  in  look- 
ing about  her  and  in  making  humorous  comments 
on  the  odd  clothes  and  attitude  of  her  fellow-wor- 
shipers. On  all  other  days  the  cure  brought  the 
communion  to  my  grandmother  in  her  room.  I  re- 
member the  first  of  these  communions  that  I  wit- 
nessed.    I   was  sitting  on  bonne  maman's  bed 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     29 

when  the  cure  entered,  accompanied  by  his  aco- 
lytes in  red  and  white,  and  I  was  highly  interested 
when  I  recognized  in  one  of  these  important  per- 
sonages the  cook's  little  boy.  The  cure  was  go- 
ing to  lift  me  from  the  bed,  but  bonne  maman 
said:  "No;  let  her  stay.  When  you  are  gone  I 
will  explain  to  her  the  meaning  of  what  she  sees." 
This  she  attempted  to  do,  but  not,  I  imagine,  with 
much  success.  Old  Gertrude,  Jeannie's  chief  in 
the  nursery,  had  of  course  already  told  me  of  le 
petit  Jesus,  and  I  had  learned  to  repeat,  "Seigneur, 
je  vous  donne  coeur."  But  bonne  maman  was 
grieved  to  find  that  I  did  not  yet  know  "Our 
Father." 

"Sophie  does  not  know  her  Pater,"  she  said  to 
my  mother.     "She  must  learn  it." 

"Oh,  she  is  too  young  to  learn  it,"  said  my 
mother.  But  bomie  maman  was  not  at  all  satis- 
fied with  this  evasion  and  saw  that  the  prayer  was 
taught  to  me.  She  was  very  devout,  and  con- 
fessed twice  a  week;  but  more  than  this,  she  was 
the  best  of  women.  I  never  heard  her  speak  ill  of 
any  one  or  saw  her  angry  at  any  time,  nor  did  I 


30      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

ever  see  her  give  way  to  mirth,  though  I  remember 
a  species  of  silent  laughter  that  at  times  shook  her 
thin  body. 

Bonne  maman  was  devoted  to  my  father,  even 
more  devoted  than  to  her  own  sons,  of  whom  she 
had  had  eight.  They  had  been  so  severely 
brought  up  by  her,  but  especially,  I  feel  sure,  by 
my  grandfather,  that  through  exaggerated  respect 
and  absurd  ceremony  they  almost  trembled  during 
the  short  audiences  granted  to  them  by  their  pa- 
rents. My  father  trembled  before  nobody.  He 
was  always  cheerful,  good-tempered,  and  kind. 
During  our  life  at  Quimper  he  was  not  much  at 
home,  as  he  had  a  horror  of  receptions  and  visits, 
— all  the  bother,  as  he  said,  of  social  life, — and  the 
time  not  spent  in  hunting  was  fully  occupied  in 
seeing  after  his  farms,  his  crops,  and  his  peasants. 
Therefore,  when  he  came  back  for  a  three-or-four- 
days'  stay  with  us,  it  was  a  delight  to  young  and 
old.  I  see  him  now,  sitting  in  a  low  chair  beside 
bonne  maman^s  deep  bergere,  his  head  close  to 
hers,  his  pipe  between  his  teeth, — yes,  his  pipe — 
for  bonne  maman  not  only  permitted,  but  even 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     31 

commanded,  him  to  smoke  in  her  presence,  so  much 
did  she  value  every  moment  of  the  time  he  could 
be  with  her.  So  they  smiled  at  each  other  while 
they  talked, — the  snowy,  powdered  old  head  and 
the  fair  young  one  enveloped  in  the  midst  of 
smoke, —  understanding  each  other  perfectly ;  and 
although  their  opinions  were  diametrically  op- 
posed, politics  was  their  favorite  theme.  They 
must  have  taught  me  their  respective  battle-cries, 
for  I  well  remember  that,  riding  my  father's  knee 
and  listening,  while  he  varied  the  gait  from  trot  to 
gallop,  I  knew  just  when  to  cry  out,  ''Vive  le  RoiT' 
in  order  to  please  bonne  maman^  and  ''Vive  la  Re- 
publiqueP'  to  make  papa  laugh.  When  disputes 
occurred  in  bonne  maman^s  room,  they  were  be- 
tween my  father  and  mother,  if  that  can  be  called 
a  dispute  where  one  is  so  gay  and  so  imperturbable. 
It  was  tnaman  who  brought  all  the  heat  and 
vehemence  to  these  differences,  and,  strange  to  say, 
bonne  maman  always  took  my  father's  side  against 
her  beloved  daughter.  My  mother's  quick 
temper,  I  may  add,  displayed  itself  toward  me 
pretty  frequently  in  slaps  and  whippings,  no  doubt 


32      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

well  deserved,  for  I  was  a  naughty,  wilful  child; 
whereas  in  all  my  life  I  never  received  a  punish- 
ment from  my  father.  I  remember  his  distress 
on  one  of  these  occasions  and  how  he  said,  "It  is 
unworthy  to  beat  some  one  who  cannot  retaliate," 
To  which  my  mother,  flushed  and  indignant,  re- 
plied, "It  would  indeed  need  only  that."  She  was 
a  charming  and  lovable  woman,  but  I  loved  my 
father  best. 

Bonne  maman  was  very  musical,  and  in  the 
petit  salon^  when  she  was  installed  there  for  the 
day,  I  heard  music  constantly,  performed  by  two 
young  proteges  of  the  house.  One  of  these  was 
Mile.  Ghislaine  du  Guesclin,  the  youngest  descend- 
ant of  our  great  Breton  hero.  It  was  a  very  poor, 
very  haughty  family,  and  extremely  proud  of  its 
origin.  Ghislaine's  father,  the  Marquis  du  Gues- 
clin (for  with  a  foolish  conceit  he  had  separated 
the  particle  from  the  name)  had  died,  leaving  his 
daughter  penniless  and  recommending  her  to  my 
grandfather,  who  placed  her  as  da7ne  de  compagnie 
beside  my  mother  and  bojzne  maman.  Ghislaine 
was  an  excellent  musician,  and  their  relation  was 


"  I  heard  music  constantly" 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     35 

of  the  happiest.  The  other  protege  was  called 
Yves  le  Grand,  and  was  the  son  of  bonne  maman's 
coiffeur.  His  story  was  curious.  As  a  boy  of 
fourteen  or  fifteen  he  had  come  three  times  a  week 
to  wash  the  windows  and  doors,  and  while  he 
worked  he  sang  all  sorts  of  Breton  songs  and 
strange  airs  that,  as  was  learned  later,  were  his 
own  improvisations.  Bonne  ?naman^  noticing  his 
talent,  had  him  taken  to  Paris  by  her  husband,  and 
he  was  educated  in  the  conservatory,  where,  after 
ten  years  of  admirable  study,  he  took  the  second 
prize.  He  returned  to  Quimper,  and  earned  a 
handsome  livelihood  by  giving  pianoforte  lessons 
while  remaining  in  a  sense  our  private  musician, 
for  he  was  much  attached  to  us  all  and  accom- 
panied us  on  all  our  travels.  Ghislaine  sang 
in  a  ravishing  fashion,  and  Yves  accompan- 
ied her  on  the  clavecin  that  stood  in  the  petit 
salon.,  mingling  the  grave  accents  of  his  baritone 
with  her  clear  soprano.  When  I  first  heard  them 
I  was  almost  stupefied  by  the  experience,  cuddling 
down  into  bonne  maman's  arms,  my  head  sunk  be- 
tween her  cheek  and  shoulder,  but  listening  with 


36      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

such  absorption  and  with  such  evident  apprecia- 
tion that  bonne  ma7nan  loved  me  more  than  ever 
for  the  community  of  taste  thus  revealed  between 
us. 

I  must  often  have  tired  her.  I  was  a  noisy, 
active  child,  and  sometimes  when  I  sat  on  her 
knee  and  prattled  incessantly  in  my  shrill,  childish 
voice,  she  would  pass  her  hand  over  her  forehead 
and  say :  "Not  so  loud,  darling;  not  so  loud.  You 
pierce  my  ear-drums;  and  you  know  that  le  bon 
Dieu  has  said  that  one  must  never  speak  without 
first  turning  one's  tongue  seven  times  round  in 
one's  mouth."  At  this  I  would  gaze  wide-eyed  at 
bonne  maman  and  try  involuntarily  to  turn  my 
tongue  seven  times,  an  exercise  at  which  I  have 
never  been  successful.  I  may  add  in  parenthesis 
that  I  have  often  regretted  it.  Another  amusing 
adage  I  heard  at  the  same  time  from  Gertrude.  If 
a  child  made  a  face,  it  was  told  to  take  care  lest 
the  wind  should  turn,  and  the  face  remain  like 
that  forever.  I  was  much  troubled  by  this  idea 
on  one  occasion  when  maman  and  Ghislaine  had 
been  to  a  fancy  dress  ball.     Ghislaine  told  me 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     37 

next  day  about  the  dances  and  dresses.  Maman 
had  danced  a  minuet  dressed  in  a  Pompadour 
costume,  and  she  herself  had  gone  as  a  deviless, 
with  a  scarlet-and-black  dress  and  little  golden 
horns  in  her  black  hair,  I  felt  this  to  have  been 
a  very  dangerous  proceeding,  for  if  le  hon  Dieu 
had  noticed  Ghislaine's  travesty,  He  might  have 
made  the  wind  turn,  and  she  would  then  have  re- 
mained a  deviless  and  been  forced  to  live  in  hell 
for  all  eternity. 

A  pretty  custom  at  that  time  and  in  that  place 
was  that  the  young  matrons  who  went  to  such 
balls  and  dinner-parties  were  expected  to  bring 
little  silk  bags  in  which  they  carried  home  to  their 
children  the  left-over  sweetmeats  of  the  dessert; 
so  that  we  children  enjoyed  these  entertainments 
as  much  as  Ghislaine  and  maman. 

Ghislaine  taught  me  my  letters  from  a  colored 
alphabet  in  the  petit  saloii,  showing  an  angelic 
patience  despite  my  yawns  and  whimperings. 
My  memories  of  the  alphabet  are  drolly  intermin- 
gled with  various  objects  in  the  petit  salon  that 
from  the  earliest  age  charmed  my  attention.     One 


38      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

of  these  was  an  immense  tortoise-shell  mounted  on 
a  tripod,  and  another  a  vast  Chinese  umbrella  of 
pale  yellow  satin,  with  silk  and  crystal  fringes, 
that,  suspended  from  the  ceiling  in  front  of  the 
long  windows  that  gave  on  the  garden,  was  filled 
with  flowers.  This  had  been  an  ingenious  con- 
trivance of  my  father's,  and  bonne  maman  found 
it  as  bewitching  as  I  did,  never  failing  to  say 
to  visitors,  after  the  first  greetings  had  passed: 
"Do  you  see  my  Chinese  umbrella'?"  When  I 
had  learned  seven  letters  bonne  maman  gave  me 
four  red  dragees  de  bapteme^ — the  sugar-almonds 
that  are  scattered  at  christenings, — and  promised 
me  as  many  more  for  each  new  attainment.  Thus 
sustained,  I  was  able  to  master  the  alphabet  and 
to  pass  by  slow  degrees  to  ^sop's  Fables,  with  pic- 
tures and  a  yellow  cover.  It  was  later  on  that 
Ghislaine  began  to  coach  me  in  all  the  depat Ye- 
menis of  France  and  their  capitals.  Maman  lent 
a  hand  in  this  and  instituted  a  method  that  was 
singularly  successful.  I  still  laugh  in  remember- 
ing how  at  any  time  of  the  day,  before  guests,  at 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     39 

meals,  or  while  we  were  at  play,  she  might  sud- 
denly call  out  to  us,  "Gers  I"  for  instance,  to  which 
one  must  instantly  reply  "Auch."  Or  else  it  was 
"Girondel"  and  the  reply,  "Bordeaux,"  must  fol- 
low without  hesitation.  If  I  replied  correctly,  I 
was  given  fifty  centimes;  if  incorrectly,  I  received 
a  slap.  I  used  to  dream  of  the  departements  and 
their  capitals  at  night.  One  rainy  day  I  was  play- 
ing in  the  petit  salon^  lying  at  full  length  on  the 
floor  and  making  a  castle  of  blocks,  when  maman, 
coming  suddenly  out  of  the  library,  a  great  tray 
of  books  in  her  arms,  cried  out  to  me  as  she  came, 
walking  very  quickly,  "Garel"  ["Take  care  I"] 
Without  moving  and  without  looking  up,  I  replied 
obediently,  "Nimes"  (the  capital  of  Gard),  and 
an  avalanche  of  books  descended  upon  me,  poor 
maman  and  her  tray  coming  down  with  a  dreadful 
clatter.  Maman  was  not  hurt,  but  very  much 
afraid  that  I  was. 

When  she  found  us  both,  except  for  a  few 
bruises,  safe  and  sound,  she  went  off  into  a  peal  of 
laughter,  and  I  followed  suit,  much  relieved;  for 


40      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

I  had  imagined  for  one  moment  that  I  had  made  a 
mistake  in  my  answer,  and  I  found  the  punish- 
ment too  severe. 

"You  are  sure  I  have  not  hurt  you,  darling*?" 
said  maman^  kissing  me;  and  I  replied  with  truth: 

"No,  Maman;  but  I  should  have  preferred  the 
gifier  On  that  day,  instead  of  fifty  centimes,  I 
received  a  franc  for  consolation. 

It  was  not  until  my  brother's  tutor  came  to  us, 
when  I  was  eight  or  nine  years  old,  that  I  ever  had 
any  teacher  but  Ghislaine. 

Poor  Ghislaine !  Hers  was  a  rather  sad  story. 
She  had  great  beauty,  thick,  black  hair,  white 
skin,  her  small  prominent  nose  full  of  distinction, 
but  one  strange  peculiarity :  there  were  no  nails  on 
her  long,  pointed  fingers.  This,  while  not  ugly, 
startled  one  in  noticing  her  hands.  As  I  have  said, 
she  had  been  left  penniless,  and  it  was  difficult  in 
France,  then  as  now,  to  find  a  husband  for  a  jeune 
fille  sans  dot.  Ghislaine  only  begged  that  he 
should  be  a  gentleman.  But  after  bonne  maman' s 
death,  when  we  had  gone  to  live  in  Paris,  Ghis- 
laine was  left  behind  with  my  aunt's  family,  and 


<^^#w 


\ 


"Ghislane  taught  me  my  letters" 


QUIMPER  AND  BONNE  MAMAN     43 

they  finally  arranged  a  marriage  for  her  with  a 
notary.  My  mother  was  much  distressed  by  this 
prosaic  match.  She  had  for  a  time  cherished  the 
romantic  project  of  a  marriage  between  Ghislaine 
and  Yves,  who,  besides  being  an  artist,  was  the 
best  of  men,  sincere,  devoted,  and  delicate. 

For  a  descendant  of  du  Guesclin  the  coiffeur's 
son  would,  however,  have  been  as  inappropriate  as 
was  the  notary.  The  latter,  too,  was  an  excellent 
man,  and  Ghislaine  was  not  unhappy  with  him. 


CHAPTER  II 


ELIANE 


AN  important  event  in  my  child  life  was  the 
birth  of  my  sister  Eliane.  I  remember 
coming  in  from  the  garden  one  day  with  a  little 
basket  full  of  cockchafers  that  I  had  found,  and 
running  to  show  them  to  maman.  She  was  lying 
in  her  large  bed,  with  its  four  carved  bedposts  and 
high  canopy,  and,  smiling  faintly,  she  said:  "Oh, 
no,  my  little  girl;  take  them  away.  They  will 
creep  and  fly  over  everything."  I  was,  however, 
so  much  disappointed  at  this  reception  of  my  gift 
that  maman^  bending  from  her  pillows,  selected 
a  specially  beautiful  green  cockchafer  and  said 
that  that  one,  at  all  events,  she  would  keep. 
When  next  morning  I  was  told  that  I  had  a  little 
sister,  old  Gertrude,  in  answer  to  my  eager,  aston- 
ished questions,  informed  me  that  it  was  the  cock- 
chafer who,  fed  on  milk,  had  become  very  large 

44 


ELIANE  45 

during  the  night  and  had  given  birth  to  a  baby 
cockchafer,  which  it  had  presented  to  my  mother. 
This  story  of  the  cockchafer  became  a  family  jest, 
and  later  on,  after  my  mother  had  had  four  chil- 
dren, I  remembered  that  when  cockchafers  were 
referred  to  she  would  laugh  and  say:  "No I  no! 
No  more  cockchafers  for  me,  if  you  please!  I 
have  had  enough  of  their  gifts." 

The  story,  which  was  repeated  to  me  on  the 
occasion  of  each  subsequent  birth,  made  a  rather 
painful  impression  upon  me.  I  did  not  like  the 
idea  of  the  baby  cockchafer.  Nor  did  I  like  my 
little  sister  Eliane  into  whom  the  cockchafer  had 
grown.  Maman  remained  in  bed  for  a  long  time 
and  paid  no  more  attention  to  me,  and  I  was 
deeply  jealous.  I  was  no  longer  allowed  to  go  in 
and  out  of  her  room  as  had  been  my  wont,  and 
when  my  father  took  me  in  his  arms  and  carried 
me  gently  in  to  see  my  little  sister,  and  bent  with 
me  over  the  small  pink  cradle  so  that  I  might  give 
her  a  kiss,  I  felt  instead  a  violent  wish  to  bite  her. 
One  day  I  was  authorized  to  rock  Eliane  while  my 
father  and  mother  talked  together.     I  was  much 


46      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

pleased  by  this  mark  of  confidence,  and  I  slipped 
into  the  cradle,  unnoticed,  my  horrible  doll  Jose- 
phine, all  untidy  and  disheveled,  not  to  say  dirty, 
so  that  she,  too,  might  have  a  rocking.  She  lay 
cheek  to  cheek  with  Eliane,  already  a  young  lady 
ten  days  old,  and  the  contact  of  this  cold,  clammy 
cheek  woke  my  little  sister,  who  began  to  cry  so 
loudly  that,  in  order  to  quiet  her,  I  rocked  with 
might  and  main,  and  unless  papa  had  rushed  to 
the  rescue  it  is  probable  that  Eliane  and  Josephine 
would  have  been  tossed  out  upon  the  floor.  Jean- 
nie  was  at  once  summoned  to  take  me  away  in  dis- 
grace, and  in  bonne  maman's  room  I  was  consoled 
by  two  dragees^  one  white,  I  remember,  and  one 
pink. 

"You  love  your  little  sister,  don't  you,  my  dar- 
ling^" asked  bonne  maman^  to  whom  Jeannie  re- 
lated the  affair  of  the  rocking. 

"No,"  I  replied,  the  pink  dragee  in  my  m'outh. 

"Why  not,  dear?" 

"She  is  horrid,"  I  said.  And  as  bonne  tnaman^ 
much  distressed,  continued  to  question  and  ex- 
postulate, I  burst,  despite  the  dragees,  into  a  tor- 


ELIANE  47 

rent  of  tears  and  cried :  "She  is  bad !     She  is  ugly ! 
She  cries !" 

Eliane's  christening  was  a  grand  affair.  Her 
godmother  was  bonne  maman,  and  her  godfather 
my  uncle  de  Salabery,  who  brought  her  a  casket 
in  which  was  a  cup  and  saucer  in  enamel  and  also 
an  enamel  egg-cup  and  tiny,  round  egg-spoon,  and 
this  I  thought  very  silly,  since  Eliane,  like  the 
cockchafer,  ate  only  milk.  The  casket  was  of 
pale-blue  velvet,  and  had  Eliane's  name  written 
upon  it  in  golden  letters.  She  was  carried  to  the 
cathedral  by  her  nurse,  who  wore  a  gray  silk  dress 
woven  with  silver  fleurs-de-lis,  a  special  silk,  with 
its  silver  threads,  made  in  Brittany.  The  bodice 
opened  on  a  net  guimpe  thickly  embroidered  with 
white  beads.  The  apron  was  of  gray  satin  scat- 
tered over  with  a  design,  worked  in  beads,  that 
looked  like  tiny  fish.  Her  coif  was  the  tall 
medieval  hennin  of  Plougastel,  a  flood  of  lace  fall- 
ing from  its  summit.  Eliane,  majestically  car- 
ried on  her  white-lace  cushion,  wore  a  long  robe  of 
lace  and  lawn,  and  again  I  found  this  very  silly, 
since  if  by  chance  she  wished  to  walk,  she  would 


48      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

certainly  stumble  in  it!  The  cure  was  replaced 
by  the  bishop  of  the  cathedral,  who  walked  with 
a  tall  golden  stick,  twisted  at  the  top  into  a  pretty 
design.  Papa,  who  was  near  me,  explained  to 
me  that  this  was  called  a  crozier  (crosse),  which 
puzzled  me,  as  crosse  is  also  the  name  for  the 
drumstick  of  a  chicken.  I  also  learned  that  what 
I  called  the  bishop's  hat  was  a  miter.  When  he 
passed  before  us  every  one  knelt  down  except  me, 
for  I  wished  to  gaze  with  all  my  eyes  at  the  mag- 
nificent apparition.  The  bishop  leaned  toward 
me,  smiling,  and  made  a  little  cross  on  my  fore- 
head with  his  thumb,  and  then  he  put  his  hand, 
which  was  very  white  and  adorned  with  a  great 
ring  of  amethyst  and  diamond,  before  my  lips. 
"Kiss  Monseigneur's  hand,"  papa  whispered,  and, 
again  much  puzzled,  I  obeyed,  for  maman  and 
bonne  maman  gave  their  hands  to  be  kissed  by  men 
and  never  kissed  theirs.  When  the  bishop  put  the 
salt  in  Eliane's  mouth  she  made  the  most  hideous 
grimace.  Heavens  I  how  ugly  she  was  I  Maman 
took  her  into  her  arms  to  calm  her.  I  was  near 
bonne  maman  who  had  been  borne  in  her  sedan- 


/ 
/' 


\ 


'^ 


I.  J.... 


The  beach  of  Loctudiy 


ELIANE  51 

chair  into  the  cathedral,  and  I  whispered  to  her: 
"You  say  that  she  is  pretty,  bonne  marnan.  Only 
look  at  her  now  I  Does  n't  she  look  like  an  angry 
little  monkey  I"  But  bonne  maman  reminded  me 
in  a  low  voice  that  unless  I  was  very  good,  I  was 
not  to  come  to  the  christening  breakfast,  and, 
hastily,  I  began  to  turn  my  tongue  in  my  mouth. 

I  remember  that  on  this  day  bonne  maman  had 
left  her  puce-color  and  looked  like  an  old  fairy  as 
she  sat,  covered  with  all  her  jewels,  in  the  sedan- 
chair,  dressed  in  orange-colored  velvet. 

When  we  came  out  of  the  cathedral  the  square 
was  full  of  people,  and  all  the  children  of  Quimper 
were  there.  My  father,  leading  me  by  the  hand, 
was  followed  by  a  servant  who  carried  a  basket  of 
dragces.  He  took  out  a  bagful  and  told  me  that 
I  was  to  throw  them  to  the  children,  and  this  I  did 
with  great  gusto.  What  a  superb  bombardment 
it  was  I  The  children  rolled  upon  the  ground, 
laughed,  and  howled,  while  maman,  and  bonne 
maman  from  the  window  of  her  chair,  scattered 
handfuls  of  centimes,  sous,  and  liards,  an  old  coin 
of  the  period  that  no  longer  exists.     Never  in  my 


52      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

life  have  I  seen  happier  children.  They  accom- 
panied us  to  our  door  and  stayed  for  a  long  time 
outside  in  the  street,  singing  Breton  canticles  and 
crying,  "Vive  Mademoiselle  Liane  I" 

It  must  have  been  at  about  this  time  that  I  first 
saw  the  sea  and  had  my  first  sea-bath.  Papa  said 
one  day  that  he  would  take  me  to  the  beach  of 
Loctudiy,  near  Quimper,  with  old  Gertrude.  It 
is  a  vast  sandy  beach,  with  scattered  rocks  that,  to 
my  childish  eyes,  stood  like  giants  around  us. 
Gertrude  took  off  my  shoes  and  stockings,  and  we 
picked  up  the  shells  that  lay  along  the  beach  in  the 
sunlight  like  a  gigantic  rainbow.  What  a  delight 
it  was  I  Some  were  white,  some  yellow,  some 
pink,  and  some  of  a  lovely  rosy  mauve.  I  could 
not  pick  them  up  fast  enough  or  carry  those  I  al- 
ready had.  My  little  pail  overflowed,  and  the 
painful  problem  that  confronts  all  children  en- 
gaged in  this  delicious  pursuit  would  soon  have 
oppressed  me  if  my  thoughts  had  not  been  turned 
in  another  direction  by  the  sight  of  papa  making 
his  way  toward  the  sea  in  bathing-dress.  The  sea 
was  immense  and  mysterious,   and  my  beloved 


ELIANE  53 

papa  looked  very  small  before  it.  I  ran  to  him 
crying : 

"Don't  go,  papal  Don't  go  I  You  will  be 
drowned  I" 

"There  is  no  danger  of  that,  my  pet,"  said  my 
father.  "See  how  smooth  and  blue  the  water  is. 
Don't  you  want  to  come  with  me?" 

I  felt  at  once  that  I  did,  and  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye  Gertrude  had  undressed  me,  my  father  had 
me  in  his  arms,  and  before  I  could  say  "Ouf  I"  I 
was  plunged  from  head  to  foot  in  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  It  was  my  second  baptism,  and  I  still  feel 
an  agreeable  shudder  when  I  remember  it.  My 
father  held  me  under  the  arms  to  teach  me  to  swim, 
and  I  vigorously  agitated  my  little  legs  and  arms. 
Then  I  was  given  back  to  Gertrude,  who  dried 
me  and,  taking  me  by  the  hand,  made  me  run  up 
and  down  on  the  hot  sand  until  I  was  quite  warm. 

When  I  came  home,  full  of  pride  in  my  ex- 
ploits, I  told  bonne  fnatnan  that  during  my  swim  I 
had  met  a  whale  which  had  looked  at  me. 

"And  were  you  afraid  of  it*?"  asked  bonne 
maman. 


54      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

"Oh,  no,"  I  replied.  "They  do  not  eat  chil- 
dren.    I  patted  it." 

Perhaps  my  tendency  to  tell  tall  stories  dates 
from  this  time. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    FETE    AT    KER-ELIANE 

IT  was  shortly  after  Eliane's  christening,  and  to 
celebrate  my  mother's  recovery,  that  my 
father  gave  a  great  entertainment  at  Ker-Eliane, 
near  Loch-ar-Brugg. 

Loch-ar-Brugg,  which  means  Place  of  Heather, 
was  an  old  manor  and  property  that  my  father  had 
bought  and  at  that  time  used  as  a  hunting-lodge, 
and  Ker-Eliane  was  a  wild,  beautiful  piece  of 
country  adjoining  it,  a  pleasure  resort,  called  after 
my  mother's  name. 

To  reach  Loch-ar-Brugg  we  all  went  by  the 
traveling  carriage  to  my  father's  native  town  of 
Landerneau.  I  dreaded  these  journeys,  since  in- 
side the  carriage  I  always  became  sick;  but  on  this 
occasion  I  sat  outside  near  an  old  servant  of  my 
grandmother's  called  Soisick,  the  diminutive  of 
Frangois,  and  was  very  happy,  since  in  the  open 

55 


56      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

air  I  did  not  suffer  at  all.  Soisick  was  an  old 
Breton  from  Brest.  He  wore  the  costume  of  that 
part  of  the  country,  a  tightly  fitting,  long,  black 
jacket  opening  over  a  waistcoat  adorned  with 
white-bone  buttons,  full  knee-breeches  of  coarse, 
white  linen  girded  over  the  waistcoat  with  a  red 
woolen  sash,  with  white  woolen  stockings,  and 
black  shoes.  One  still  sees  very  old  Bretons  wear- 
ing this  costume,  but  nowadays  the  peasants  prefer 
the  vulgar,  commonplace  dress  of  modern  work- 
people. 

My  father  was  waiting  for  us  on  the  quay  of 
Landemeau.  What  joy  I  felt  when  I  saw  him  I 
When  he  climbed  up  beside  me  and  Soisick  my 
happiness  was  complete. 

Loch-ar-Brugg  at  that  time  was  not  suitably 
arranged  for  our  habitation,  and  we  drove  on  to 
the  Chateau  de  Ker-Azel  near  by,  where  we  were 
to  stay  with  my  tante  de  Laisieu.  This  elder 
sister  of  my  mother's  was  a  fat,  untidy,  shiftless 
woman  who  had  once  been  a  beauty,  but  whose 
abundant  fair  hair  was  now  faded,  and  who  went 
about  her  house  and  gardens  in  the  mornings  en 


"The  Chateau  de  Ker-Azel  near 
by,   where   we   were  to   stay" 


THE  FETE  AT  KER-ELIANE        59 

camisole.  When  dressed  for  the  day  her  appear- 
ance was  hardly  more  decorous,  for  she  wore  no 
stays,  and  fastened  the  slender  bodices  of  her  old 
dresses  across  her  portly  person  in  a  very  hap- 
hazard fashion,  so  that  intervals  of  white  under- 
clothing showed  between  the  straining  hooks. 
She  was  a  singular  contrast  to  my  mother,  always 
so  freshly  perfect  in  every  detail  of  her  toilet. 
The  chateau  was  partly  old  and  partly  new  and 
very  ugly,  though  the  park  that  sloped  down  to  it 
was  fine.  Near  the  chateau  stood  a  very  old  and 
beautifully  carved  font  that  must  have  belonged 
to  a  church  long  since  destroyed.  Later  on,  in 
the  days  of  her  descendants,  it  was  kept  filled  with 
growing  flowers  and  was  a  beautiful  object,  but 
my  aunt  merely  used  it  as  a  sort  of  waste-paper 
basket  for  any  scraps  she  picked  up  in  the  park. 
We  children  used  to  conceal  ourselves  in  it  in  our 
games  of  hide-and-seek.  I  enjoyed  myself  among 
my  many  cousins,  for  I  was  at  this  time  so  young 
and  so  naughty  that  they  tended  to  give  way  to  me 
in  everything.  One  of  them,  however,  a  singu- 
larly selfless  and  devout  boy  called  France,  was 


6o      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

fond  of  me  for  myself,  and  though  I  never  paid 
much  attention  to  him,  victim  rather  than  play- 
mate as  he  usually  was  in  the  games  of  the 
others,  I  was  always  aware  of  his  gentle,  pro- 
tecting presence,  and  happy  when  his  peaceful 
gaze  rested  upon  me.  After  long  years  of  separa- 
tion and  in  our  great  old  age  we  discovered,  France 
and  I,  that  we  had  always  been  dear  friends,  and 
in  the  few  years  that  remained  to  us  before  his 
recent  death  we  saw  each  other  constantly.  But  I 
must  return  to  the  fete. 

My  mother  and  my  aunt  were  absorbed  in 
preparations.  It  was  a  general  hurly-burly,  every 
one  running  north,  south,  east,  and  west — to 
Landerneau,  to  Morlaix,  to  Brest,  to  every  place, 
in  short,  that  could  boast  some  special  delicacy. 
And  at  last  the  great  day  came,  and  we  children 
were  up  with  the  lark.  There  was  first  to  be  a 
luncheon  for  the  huntsmen,  friends  of  papa's,  and 
the  ladies  were  to  follow  in  carriages  and  to 
enter  Ker-Eliane  from  the  highroad.  But  we  pre- 
ferred the  shorter  way,  by  the  deep  paths  over- 
grown with  hawthorn  and  blackberry.     The  boys 


THE  FETE  AT  KER-ELIANE        61 

rushed  along  on  the  tops  of  the  talus^  the  sort  of 
steep  bank  that  in  Brittany  takes  the  place  of 
hedges,  and  even  with  Jeannie  to  restrain  me  I  was 
nearly  as  torn  and  tattered  as  they  when  we  ar- 
rived at  Ker-Eliane.  What  a  fairy-land  it  was  I 
Rocks  and  streams,  heathery  hills,  and  woods  full 
of  bracken.  An  old  ruin,  strange  and  melan- 
choly, with  only  a  few  crumbling  walls  and  a 
portion  of  ivy-clothed  tower  left  standing,  rose 
among  trees  on  a  little  hill  near  the  entrance,  and 
farther  on,  surrounded  by  woods  of  beech  or  pine, 
were  three  lakes,  lying  in  a  chain  one  after  the 
other.  Water-lilies  grew  upon  them,  and  at  their 
brinks  a  pinkish-purple  flower  the  name  of  which 
I  never  knew.  The  third  lake  was  so  somber  and 
mysterious  that  my  father  had  called  it  the  Styx. 
An  ancient  laurel-tree — in  Brittany  the  laurels 
become  immense  trees — had  been  uprooted  in  a 
thunderstorm  and  had  fallen  across  the  Styx,  mak- 
ing a  natural  rustic  bridge.  We  children  were 
forbidden  to  cross  on  it,  but  on  this  day  I  remem- 
ber my  adventurous  cousin  Jules  rushing  to  and 
fro  from  one  bank  to  the  other  in  defiance  of 


62      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

authority.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill,  below  the  ruin, 
a  clear,  delicious  stream  sprang  forth  from  a  stony 
cleft  and  wound  through  a  valley  and  out  into  the 
lower  meadows,  and  at  the  entrance  to  the  valley, 
among  heather  and  enormous  mossy  rocks,  rose  a 
cross  of  gray  stone  without  Christ  or  ornaments. 
The  peasants  made  pilgrimages  to  it  on  Good 
Friday,  but  I  never  learned  its  history. 

It  was  among  the  lower  meadows,  in  a  charm- 
ing, smiling  spot  planted  with  chestnuts,  poplars, 
and  copper  beeches,  that  the  table  for  the  thirty 
huntsmen  was  laid  in  the  shade  of  a  little  avenue. 
Already  the  crepe-makers  from  Ouimper,  re- 
nowned through  all  the  country,  were  laying  their 
fires  upon  the  ground  under  the  trees,  and  I  must 
pause  here  to  describe  this  Breton  dish.  A  care- 
fully compounded  batter,  flavored  either  with  va- 
nilla or  malaga,  was  ladled  upon  a  large  flat  pan 
and  spread  thinly  out  to  its  edge  with  a  wooden 
implement  rather  like  a  paper-cutter.  By  means 
of  this  knife  the  crepes,  when  browned  on  one  side, 
were  turned  to  the  other  with  a  marvelous  dex- 
terity, then  lifted  from  the  pan  and  folded  at  once 


THE  FETE  AT  KER-ELIANE        63 

into  a  square,  like  a  pocket-handkerchief,  for,  if 
allowed  to  cool,  they  cracked.  They  were  as  fine 
as  paper — six  would  have  made  the  thickness  of 
an  ordinary  pancake,  and  were  served  very  hot 
with  melted  butter  and  fresh  cream,  of  which  a 
crystal  jar  stood  before  each  guest,  and  was  re- 
plenished by  the  servants  as  it  was  emptied. 

The  crepes  were  eaten  at  the  end  of  the  luncheon 
as  a  sweet,  and  among  the  other  dishes  that  I  re- 
member was  the  cold  salmon, — invariable  on  such 
occasions,  salmon  abounding  in  our  Breton  rivers, 
— with  a  highly  spiced  local  sauce,  filet  de  boeuf 
en  aspic^  York  ham,  fowls,  Russian  salad,  and  the 
usual  cakes  and  fruits.  The  huntsmen  seated  at 
this  feast  did  not  wear  the  pink  coats  and  top-hats 
of  more  formal  occasions,  but  dark  jackets  and 
knee-breeches  and  the  small,  round  Breton  cap 
with  upturned  brim  that  admitted  of  a  pipe  being 
tucked  into  it  at  one  side.  And  so  they  carried 
their  pipes,  as  the  peasants  did,  and  the  legitimists 
among  them  had  a  golden  fleur-de-lis  fixed  in 
front.  The  ladies  of  the  party,  in  summer  dresses 
and  wide-brimmed  hats,  arrived  when  the  more 


64      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

substantial  part  of  the  repast  was  over,  and  their 
carriages  filled  the  highroad  outside  the  precincts 
of  Ker-Eliane.  A  feast  was  spread  at  a  little  dis- 
tance for  the  peasants,  and  wine  flowed  all  day. 
After  the  feasting  two  famous  binwu-playevs  took 
up  their  places  on  the  high  talus  that  separated 
Ker-Eliane  from  Loch-ar-Brugg  and  played  the 
farandol,  the  jabadao^  and  other  country-dances 
for  the  peasants  to  dance  to.  The  biniou  is  rather 
like  a  small  bagpipe  and  produces  a  wild,  shrill 
sound.  The  players  wore  a  special  costume :  their 
caps  and  their  stockings  were  bright  red;  their 
jackets  and  waistcoats  bright  blue,  beautifully 
embroidered;  their  full  white  breeches  of  coarse 
linen.  Like  all  the  peasants  at  that  time,  they 
wore  their  hair  long,  falling  over  the  shoulders. 
It  was  a  charming  sight  to  see  the  peasants  danc- 
ing, all  in  their  local  costumes.  The  women's 
skirts  were  of  black  or  red  stuff,  with  three  bands 
of  velvet,  their  bodices  of  embroidered  velvet,  and 
they  all  wore  a  gold  or  silver  Breton  cross,  hung  on 
a  black  velvet  ribbon,  round  their  necks,  and  a 
Saint  Esprit  embroidered  in  gold  on  the  front  of 


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THE  FETE  AT  KER-ELIANE        67 

their  bodices.  Among  the  coifs  I  remember  sev- 
eral beautiful  tall  hennins.  What  a  day  it  was  I 
Landemeau  talked  of  it  for  years,  and  I  have  never 
forgotten  it.  We  children  had  our  luncheon  sit- 
ting on  the  grass  near  the  big  table,  and  afterward 
there  were  endless  games  among  the  heather  and 
bracken.  My  little  sister  Eliane  appeared,  car- 
ried in  her  pink  basket,  and  seemed  to  look  about 
her  with  great  approval. 

Later  on  in  the  day,  when  the  dancing  had  be- 
gun, we  went  to  look  on  at  that,  and  I  wanted  very 
much  to  dance,  too;  but  nobody  asked  me,  for  I 
was  too  little.  I  must  by  that  time  have  begun  to 
get  very  tired  and  troublesome,  for  I  remember 
that  maman  promised  me  a  little  wheelbarrow  if  I 
would  be  good  and  allowed  Jeannie  to  take  me 
back  to  Ker-Azel.  I  was  already  sleepy,  as  I  had 
drunk  a  quantity  of  champagne,  with  which  the 
servants  had  replenished  my  little  liqueur-glass, 
and  I  allowed  myself  at  last  to  be  carried  away  by 
Jeannie,  and  fell  asleep  in  her  arms. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    OLD    HOUSE    AT    LANDERNEAU 

DURING  these  early  years  of  my  life  our 
time,  though  mainly  spent  with  bonne 
maman  at  Quimper,  was  also  given  for  many 
months  of  the  year  to  Landerneau,  and  a  little 
later  on  was  divided  between  these  two  houses  and 
Loch-ar-Brugg.  At  Landerneau  we  lived  in  a  vast 
old  house  that  had  been  part  of  my  mother's  mar- 
riage dowry.  The  family  house,  equally  old  and 
vast,  of  the  Kerouguets  was  also  at  Landerneau, 
and  the  house  of  dear  Tante  Rose,  my  father's 
eldest  sister.  Landerneau  was  a  picturesque  old 
town,  so  near  the  sea  that  the  tides  rose  and  fell 
in  the  River  Elorn,  which  flowed  through  it.  A 
legend  ran  that  the  part  of  Landerneau  lying  on 
the  southern  banks  of  the  river,  still  all  wild  with 
great  rocks  that  seemed  to  have  been  hurled  to- 
gether by  some  giant's  hand,  had  been  reduced  to 

68 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  69 

this  condition  by  the  devil.  He  had  been  travel- 
ing through  the  country,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the 
southern  half  of  Landerneau  had  refused  to  give 
him  food  and  drink,  whereas  those  of  the  northern 
half  had  suitably  and  diplomatically  entertained 
him;  and  it  was  in  vengeance  that  he  had  hurled 
these  great  rocks  across  the  river,  to  remain  as 
permanent,  if  picturesque,  embarrassments  to 
southern  Landerneau.  The  morality  of  the  story 
was  disconcerting,  and  very  much  puzzled  me 
when  I  was  told  it  by  old  Gertrude.  Our  house 
formed  a  corner  of  the  principal  street  in  the  north- 
ern side  of  the  town.  In  the  days  of  the  Ter- 
ror, not  so  far  distant  in  my  childhood,  it  had  been 
used,  with  the  house  of  Tante  Rose  across  the  way, 
as  a  prison  where  the  condemned  were  put  on  their 
way  to  be  guillotined  at  Brest,  and  a  subterranean 
passage  that  ran  between  the  two  houses,  under  the 
street,  conveyed  the  unfortunates  swiftly  and  un- 
obtrusively, if  occasion  required  it,  from  one 
prison  to  the  other.  Another  lugubrious  memento 
of  that  terrible  time  were  the  small  square  open- 
ings in  the  floors  of  the  upper  rooms  in  these 


70      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

houses.  In  our  days  they  were  used  to  summon 
servants  from  below,  but  their  original  purpose 
had  been  for  watching  the  captives  unobserved. 
In  the  panels  of  the  great  oaken  door  that  opened 
on  the  street,  in  our  house,  were  little  grated 
squares  through  which  those  who  knocked  for  ad- 
mittance could  be  cautiously  examined,  and  this 
feature  gave  a  further  idea  of  the  strange  and 
perilous  circumstances  of  bygone  days.  The 
kitchen,  which  was  entered  from  a  stone  hall, 
was  our  delight;  it  was  called  the  every-day 
kitchen.  Enormous  logs  burned  in  a  vast  open 
fireplace,  archaically  carved.  At  that  time  coal 
was  little  known  in  the  country,  and  the  joints 
were  roasted  on  a  spit  before  this  fire,  which  looked 
like  the  entrance  to  an  inferno.  There  was  a  little 
oven  for  stews  and  sweets,  etc.  Under  a  square 
glass  case  on  the  mantel-shelf,  lifted  high  above 
the  busy  scene,  stood  a  statue  of  the  Virgin,  very 
old  and  very  ugly,  dressed  in  tinsel,  a  necklace  of 
colored  beads  around  its  neck.  This  was  a  cher- 
ished possession  of  Nicole's,  an  old  cook  of  my 
grandmother's,  who  followed  us  everywhere,  and 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  71 

at  its  foot,  under  the  glass  cover,  lay  her  withered 
orange-flower  wedding-wreath.  The  kitchen  was 
lighted  at  night  by  numbers  of  tallow  candles  that 
burned  in  tall  brass  candlesticks,  each  with  its  pin- 
cers and  snuffer.  (A  candle  with  us  does  not 
"take  snuff";  it  has  "its  nose  blown" — on  mou- 
chait  la  chandelle.)  Brass  warming-pans,  which 
we  children  called  Bluebeard's  wives,  were 
ranged  along  the  walls,  and  a  multitude  of  copper 
saucepans  hung  in  order  of  size,  glittering  with 
special  splendor  on  those  spaces  that  could  be 
seen  from  the  street,  for  ''ou  Vorgueil  ne  va  fil  pas 
se  nicker^"  Through  an  opening  in  the  wall  op- 
posite the  big  windows  dishes  could  be  passed  to 
the  servants  in  the  dining-room  during  meals. 
The  dining-room  windows  looked  out  at  a  gar- 
den full  of  flowers,  the  high  walls  embroidered 
with  espalier  fruit-trees,  plum-,  cherry-,  mulberry-, 
and  medlar-trees  growing  along  the  paths.  At  the 
bottom  of  the  garden  was  a  large  aviary  contain- 
ing golden  and  silver  pheasants,  magpies,  canaries, 
and  exotic  birds  that  my  father's  naval  friends  had 
brought  him  from  their  long  Oriental  voyages. 


72      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

My  father  himself  tended  these  birds,  and  I  can 
answer  for  it  that  they  lacked  nothing,  I  must 
tell  here  of  the  strange  behavior  of  a  golden 
pheasant.  Despite  papa's  gentleness  and  care, 
this  bird  seemed  to  detest  him  and  would  not  let 
him  enter  the  aviary;  but  when  I  came  with  papa, 
the  pheasant  would  run  to  the  wires  and  eat  the 
bread  I  held  out  to  it  from  my  hand.  Papa  was 
surprised  and  interested,  and  suggested  one  day 
that  I  should  go  with  him  into  the  aviary  and  "see 
what  the  pheasant  would  say."  No  sooner  said 
than  done.  The  bird  rushed  at  papa  and  pecked 
at  his  feet  with  a  singular  ferocity;  then,  feeling, 
evidently,  that  he  had  disposed  of  his  enemy,  he 
turned  to  me,  spread  out  his  wings  before  me, 
bowed  up  and  down  as  if  an  ecstasy  of  reverent  de- 
light, and  taking  the  bread  I  held  out  to  him,  he 
paid  no  more  attention  at  all  to  papa. 

The  principal  rooms  on  the  ground  floor  of  the 
house  opened  on  a  stone  hall  with  an  inlaid  marble 
floor,  where,  in  a  niche  carved  in  the  wall,  and 
facing  the  wide  stone  staircase,  stood  another  Vir- 
gin, much  larger  and  even  older  than  Nicole's. 


"In  the  panels  of  the  great  oaken 
door  .  ,  .  were  little  grated  squares" 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  75 

She  was  of  stone,  with  a  blunted,  gentle  counte- 
nance, and  hands  held  out  at  each  side  in  a  grace- 
ful, simple  gesture  that  seemed  to  express  surprise 
as  much  as  benediction.  As  we  came  down  from 
our  rooms  every  morning  it  was  as  if  she  greeted  us 
always  with  a  renewed  interest.  Fresh  flowers 
were  laid  at  her  feet  every  day,  and  we  were  all 
taught,  the  boys  to  lift  their  hats,  the  girls  to  drop 
deep  curtseys  before  her.  Indeed,  these  respects 
were  paid  by  us  to  all  the  many  statues  of  the 
Virgin  that  are  seen  on  our  Breton  roads.  From 
the  hall  one  entered  the  salon,  with  its  inlaid  par- 
quet floor,  so  polished  that  we  were  forbidden  to 
slide  upon  it,  for  it  was  as  slippery  as  ice,  and 
falls  were  inevitable  for  disobedient  ^children. 
On  the  mantelpiece  was  a  clock  representing 
Marius  weeping  over  the  ruins  of  Carthage.  His 
cloak  lay  about  his  knees,  and  we  used  to  feel  that 
he  would  have  done  much  better  had  he  drawn  it 
up  and  covered  his  chilly-looking  bronze  shoul- 
ders. On  each  side  of  the  clock  were  white  vases 
with  garlands  in  relief  upon  them  of  blue  con- 
volvulus and  their  green  leaves.     But  what  be- 


76      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

witched  us  children  were  the  big  Chinese  porcelain 
figures,  mandarins  sitting  cross-legged,  with  heads 
that  nodded  gently  up  and  down  at  the  slightest 
movement  made  in  the  room.  Their  bellies  were 
bare,  their  eyes  seemed  to  laugh,  and  they  were 
putting  out  their  tongues.  Black  ibises  upon  their 
robes  opened  wide  beaks  to  catch  butterflies.  I  re- 
member crossing  the  hall  on  tiptoe  and  opening 
the  salon-door  very  softly  and  looking  in  at  the 
mandarins  sitting  there  in  their  still  merriment; 
and  it  required  a  little  courage,  as  though  one 
summoned  a  spell,  to  shake  the  door  and  rouse 
them  into  life.  The  heads  gently  nodded,  the 
eyes  seemed  to  laugh  with  a  new  meaning  at  me 
now;  and  I  gazed,  half  frightened,  half  laughing, 
too,  until  all  again  was  motionless.  It  was  as  if  a 
secret  jest  had  passed  between  me  and  the  man- 
darins. In  an  immense  room  to  the  left  of  the 
salon  that  had  once,  perhaps,  been  a  ball-room, 
but  was  now  used  as  a  laundry,  was  a  high  sculp- 
tured fireplace  that  was  my  joy.  On  each  side  the 
great  greyhounds,  sitting  up  on  their  hind  legs,  sus- 
tained the  mantelpiece,  all  garlanded  with  vines. 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  77 

Among  the  leaves  and  grapes  one  saw  a  nest  of 
little  birds,  with  their  beaks  wide  open,  and  the 
father  and  mother  perched  above  them.  And, 
most  beautiful  of  all,  a  swallow  in  flight  only 
touched  with  the  tip  of  a  wing  a  leaf,  and  really 
seemed  to  be  flying.  Only  my  father  appreciated 
this  masterpiece,  which  must  have  been  a  superb 
example  of  Renaissance  work,  and  when,  years 
afterward,  my  mother  sold  the  house,  the  new 
owner  had  it  broken  up  and  carted  away  because 
it  took  up  too  much  room  I 

On  the  two  floors  above  were  many  bedrooms 
not  only  for  our  growing  family,  but  for  that  of 
my  Aunt  de  Laisieu,  who,  with  all  her  children, 
used  to  pay  us  long  and  frequent  visits,  so  that 
even  in  the  babyhood  of  Eliane  and  Ernest  and 
Maraquita  I  never  lacked  companionship. 

My  mother's  room  was  called  la  chambre  des 
colonnes,  because  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  used 
there  instead  of  bedposts,  were  two  great  stone 
pillars  wreathed  with  carving  and  reaching  to  the 
ceiling.  What  a  pretty  room  it  was  I  In  spring 
its  windows  looked  down  at  a  sea  of  fruit-blossoms 


78      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

and  flowers  in  the  garden  beneath.  The  bed  had  a 
domed  canopy,  with  white  muslin  curtains  em- 
broidered in  green  spots.  Above  the  doors  were 
two  allegorical  paintings,  one  of  Love,  who  makes 
Time  pass,  and  one  of  Time,  who  makes  Love  pass. 
A  deep,  mysterious  drawer  above  the  oaken 
mantelpiece  was  used  by  manian  for  storing  pots 
of  specially  exquisite  preserves  that  were  kept  for 
winter  use.  On  her  dressing-table,  flowing  with 
muslin  and  ribbons,  I  specially  remember  the  great 
jar  of  eau  de  Cologne^  which  one  used  to  buy,  as  if 
it  were  wine,  by  the  liter. 

From  this  room  led  papa's,  more  severe  and 
masculine.  Here  there  were  glass  cabinets  fitted 
on  each  side  into  the  deep  window-seats  and  con- 
taining bibelots  from  all  over  the  world.  A  group 
of  family  miniatures  hung  on  the  wall  near  the 
fireplace. 

On  a  turning  of  the  staircase  was  a  bath-room, 
with  a  little  sort  of  sentry-box  for  cold  douches, 
and  at  the  top  of  the  house  an  enormous  garret, 
filled  with  broken  old  spinning-wheels  and  furni- 
ture, bundles  of  old  dresses,  chests  full  of  dusty 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  79 

papers.  I  found  here  one  day  bonne  mamari's  be- 
trothal-dress. It  was  of  stiff,  rich  satin,  a  wide 
blue  and  white  stripe,  with  a  dark  line  on  each 
side  of  the  blue  and  a  little  garland  of  pink  roses 
running  up  the  white.  The  long,  pointed  bodice 
was  incredibly  narrow.  A  strange  detail  was  the 
coarseness  with  which  this  beautiful  dress  was 
finished  inside.  It  was  lined  with  a  sort  of  sack- 
ing, and  the  old  lace  with  which  it  was  still 
adorned  was  pinned  into  place  with  brass  safety- 
pins.  Finally,  for  my  description  of  the  house, 
there  was  a  big  courtyard,  with  the  servants'  quar- 
ters built  round  it,  and  a  clear  little  stream  ran 
through  a  basse-cour  stocked  with  poultry. 

I  had  not  seen  this  house  for  over  fifty  years 
when,  some  time  ago,  I  went  to  visit  it.  The  new 
proprietor,  an  unprepossessing  person,  was  leaning 
against  the  great  oaken  door.  He  permitted  me, 
very  ungraciously,  to  enter. 

I  went  through  all  these  rooms  that  two  genera- 
tions ago  had  rung  with  the  sounds  of  our  happy 
young  life,  and  it  was  misery  to  me.  In  the 
kitchen,  which  had  been  so  beautiful,  the  window- 


8o      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

panes  were  broken,  and  the  dismantled  walls 
daubed  with  whitewash,  with  dusty,  empty  bottles 
where  Nicole's  Virgin  had  stood.  Upon  the  table 
was  a  greasy,  discolored  oil-cloth,  where  one  saw 
M.  Thiers,  with  knitted  eyebrows  and  folded 
arms,  surrounded  by  tricolor  flags.  The  salon — I 
sobbed  as  I  stood  and  looked  about  it;  all,  all  that 
I  had  known  and  loved  had  disappeared.  The 
stone  Virgin  was  gone  from  her  niche  in  the  hall. 
Trembling,  I  mounted  to  my  dear  parents'  rooms. 
What  desolation !  Unmade  beds  and  rickety  iron 
bedsteads;  dust,  disorder,  and  dirt.  The  carved 
chimneypiece,  with  its  great  drawer,  was  gone;  the 
paper  was  peeled  from  the  walls.  Only  over  the 
doors,  almost  invisible  under  their  cobwebs,  were 
the  painted  panels  of  Love,  who  makes  Time  pass, 
and  Time,  who  makes  Love  pass.  The  garden 
was  a  dung-heap. 

When  I  came  out,  pale  and  shaken,  the  pro- 
prietor, still  complacently  leaning  against  the 
door,  remarked,  ''Eli  bien.  Madam  is  glad  to  have 
seen  her  house,  is  n't  she  I" 

The  animal  I     I  could  have  strangled  him/ 


' I  felt  that  Tante  Rose  was  enchanting" 


CHAPTER  V 

TANTE    ROSE 

OVER  the  way  lived  Xante  Rose.  We  chil- 
dren liked  best  to  go  to  her  house  by  means 
of  the  subterranean  passage.  It  was  pich-dark, 
and  we  felt  a  fearful  delight  as  we  galloped 
through  it  at  full  speed,  and  then  beat  loudly  upon 
the  door  at  the  other  end,  so  that  old  Kerandraon 
should  not  keep  us  waiting  for  a  moment  in  the 
blackness.  In  the  salon,  between  the  windows, 
her  tame  magpie  hopping  near  her,  we  would  find 
Xante  Rose  spinning  at  her  wheel.  Xhere  were 
pink  ribbons  on  her  distaff,  and  her  beautiful, 
rounded  arms  moved  gently  to  and  fro  drawing 
out  the  fine  white  linen  thread.  Sitting,  as  I  see 
her  thus,  with  her  back  to  the  light,  her  white 
tulle  head-dress  and  the  tulle  bow  beneath  her 
chin  surrounded  her  delicate,  rosy  face  with  a  sort 
of  aureole.     She  had  a  pointed  little  chin  and  gay, 

83 


84      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

blue  eyes,  and  though  she  had  snowy  hair,  she 
looked  so  young  and  was  so  active  that  she  seemed 
to  have  quicksilver  in  her  veins.  A  tranquil  mirth 
was  her  distinguishing  characteristics,  and  even 
when  hardly  more  than  a  baby  I  felt  that  Tante 
Rose  was  enchanting.  Her  first  question  was  sure 
to  be,  "Are  you  hungry*?"  and  even  if  we  had 
just  risen  from  a  meal  we  were  sure  to  be  hungry 
when  we  came  to  see  Tante  Rose.  She  would 
blow  into  a  little  silver  whistle  that  hung  at  her 
waist,  and  old  Kerandraon  (we  children  pro- 
nounced it  Ker-le  dragon)  would  appear  with  his 
benevolent,  smiling  face. 

"Take  Mademoiselle  Sophie's  orders,  Keran- 
draon," Tante  Rose  would  say;  but  the  dear  old 
man,  who  was  a  great  friend,  did  not  need  to  wait 
for  them. 

"Demoiselle  would  like  crepes  and  fresh  cream; 
and  there  is  the  rest  of  the  chocolate  paste  which 
Demoiselle  likes,  too." 

"Bring  what  pleases  you,"  Tante  Rose  would 
say,  "and  take  my  key,  Kerandraon,  and  fetch  the 
box  of  Sucre  d'orge  from  the  shelf  in  my  ward- 


XANTE  ROSE  87 

robe."  When  Kerandraon  had  come  ambling 
back  with  his  laden  tray  he  would  stop  and  talk 
with  us  while  we  ate.  He  was  seventy  years  old 
and  had  a  noble  air  in  his  long  Louis  XV  jacket. 
Xante  Rose's  mother  had  taken  him  from  the 
streets  when  he  was  a  little  beggar-boy  of  twelve. 
He  lived  in  the  family  service  all  his  life,  and 
when  he  died  at  seventy-five  he  was  buried  in  the 
family  vault.  Jacquette,  the  magpie,  sometimes 
became  very  noisy  on  these  festive  occasions,  and 
Xante  Rose  would  say:  "Go  into  the  garden,  Jac- 
quette. Tu  ni' annuls'''  (so  she  pronounced  en- 
nuies).  And  Jacquette,  who  seemed  to  under- 
stand everything  she  said,  would  go  obediently 
hopping  off.  In  the  garden,  adjoining  the  salon, 
was  a  greenhouse  full  of  grapes  and  flowers,  and 
that  was  another  haven  of  delight  on  our  visits 
to  Xante  Rose.  It  was  the  prettiest  sight  to  see 
her  mounted  on  a  step-ladder  cutting  the  grapes. 
A  servant  held  the  ladder,  and  another  the  basket 
into  which  the  carefully  chosen  bunches  were 
dropped.  Xante  Rose's  little  feet  were  shod  in  a 
sort   of   high-heeled    brown-satin    slipper   called 


88      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

cothurnes,  probably  because  they  tied  in  classic 
fashion  across  the  instep,  little  gold  acorns  hang- 
ing at  the  ends  of  the  ribbons.  I  have  the  most 
distinct  recollection  of  these  exquisite  feet  as  I 
stood  beside  the  ladder  looking  up  at  Tante  Rose 
and  waiting  for  her  to  drop  softly  a  great  bunch 
of  grapes  into  my  hands.  The  fruit-trees  of 
Tante  Rose's  garden  were  famous.  A  great  old 
fig-tree  there  was  so  laden  with  fruit  that  supports 
had  to  be  put  under  the  heavy  branches;  there 
were  wonderful  Smyrna  plums,  and  an  apple-tree 
covered  with  tiny  red  apples  that  were  our  joy. 
From  a  high  terrace  in  the  garden  one  could  watch 
all  that  went  on  in  the  town  below.  Tante  Rose's 
cream,  too,  was  famous.  Great  earthenware  pans 
of  milk  stood  on  the  wide  shelves  of  her  dairy,  and 
when  maman  came  to  see  her  she  would  say,  "May 
I  go  into  the  dairy.  Rose?"  It  was  always  known 
what  this  meant.  Maman  would  skim  for  herself 
a  bowlful  of  the  thick,  golden  cream. 

Even  the  kitchen  had  an  elegance,  a  grace,  and 
sparkle  all  its  own,  and  it  is  here  that  I  can  most 
characteristically  see  Tante  Rose  distributing  milk 


TANTE  ROSE  89 

for  the  poor  of  Landerneau.  Her  farmers'  wives 
had  brought  it  in  from  the  country  in  large,  cov- 
ered pails,  and  Xante  Rose,  dressed  in  a  mOrning- 
gown  of  puce-colored  silk  (like  bonne  maman  in 
this,  she  wore  no  other  color),  her  full  sleeves, 
with  their  wide  lawn  cuffs  turned  back  over  her 
arms,  ladled  it  into  jars,  giving  her  directions  the 
while  to  the  servants:  "This  for  Yann.  This  for 
Herve  [an  old  cripple].  Did  this  milk  come 
from  the  yellow?  It  is  sure,  then,  to  be  very 
good;  take  it  to  the  hospital  and — wait  I  This 
little  jug  of  cream  to  the  superieure;  she  is  so  fond 
of  it.  And,  Laic,  this  large  jar  is  for  the  prison," 
for  Tante  Rose  forgot  nobody,  and  all  with  such 
quiet  grace  and  order.  The  poor  of  Landerneau 
adored  her.  The  thread  she  spun  was  woven  at 
her  country  place.  La  Fontaine  Blanche,  into  linen 
to  make  clothes  for  them,  and  she  knitted  socks  and 
waistcoats  even  as  she  went  about  the  streets  on 
her  errands  of  mercy.  If  the  poor  loved  her,  it 
was  respect  mingled  with  a  little  fear  that  the 
bourgeoisie  felt,  for  she  had  no  patience  with 
scandal-mongering  and  sharply  checked  their  gos- 


90      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

siping,  provincial  habits.  The  chatelaines  of  the 
surrounding  country  sought  her  out  and  delighted 
in  her  charm,  her  accomplishments,  and  her  devil- 
may-care  wit.  Tante  Rose  was  married  to  a 
wealthy  and  excellent  Landemean,  Joseph  Goury, 
whom  we  called  Tonton  Joson,  and  his  friends, 
Jason.  He  had  a  placid,  kindly  face,  and  stout, 
fine  calves  incased  in  silk  stockings.  Still  in  love 
with  his  wife,  he  was  patiently  submissive  to  her 
gay  sallies ;  for  though  very  fond  of  him,  she  did 
not  conceal  that  she  found  him  a  dull  companion. 
Very  drolly,  though  she  tutoyed  him,  she  used  al- 
ways to  address  him  as  "Monsieur  Goury." 
"TaiS'toi^  Monsieur  Goury,"'  she  would  say;  "you 
are  as  tiresome  as  the  flies."  And  after  enduring 
his  prosy  talk  for  some  time  she  would  say  quite 
calmly :  "I  am  beginning  to  drink  hemlock.  Go 
away.  Monsieur  Goury — va  fen.  You  bore  me 
to  distraction.  You  stun  and  stupefy  me.  Go 
away.  Je  n'en  puis  plus."'  And  poor  Tonton 
Joson  remaining  helplessly  gazing,  she  would  lift 
the  little  trap-door  beside  her  chair,  if  the  scene 
took  place  in  her  room,  and  call  out  to  the  serv- 


XANTE  ROSE  91 

ants  below,  "Tell  Laic  to  come  up  and  help 
monsieur  on  with  his  coat." 

"But,  my  dear,  I  was  not  thinking  of  going  out," 
Tonton  Joson  would  protest;  and  Tante  Rose 
would  reply: 

"Mau  tu  sors,  Monsieur  GouryT 

Tante  Rose  was  very  devout,  but  after  her  own 
fashion.  She  read  the  office  to  herself  every  day, 
but  had  many  librepensant  friends,  with  whom 
she  used  good-temperedly  to  argue.  Any  bishop 
who  came  to  Landerneau  stayed  always  with 
Tante  Rose. 

Her  cuisine  was  the  best  I  have  ever  eaten ;  and 
oh,  the  incredible  abundance  of  those  days!  All 
the  courses  were  served  at  once  upon  the  immense 
table.  The  great  silver  soup-tureen,  big  enough 
for  a  baby's  bath,  and  so  tall  that  she  had  to  stand 
up  to  it,  was  in  front  of  Tante  Rose,  and  before 
she  began  to  ladle  out  the  platefuls,  with  the  light, 
accurate  movements  of  her  arms  characteristic  of 
her,  a  servant  carefully  fastened  behind  her  her 
long  sleeves  a  la  pagode.  It  was  really  charming 
to  watch  her  serving  the  soup,  and  I  remember 


92      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

one  guest  asserting  that  he  would  eat  potage  four 
times  if  Mme.  Goury  helped  him  to  it. 

An  enormous  salmon  usually  occupied  the  center 
of  the  table,  and  there  were  six  entrees^  four  rotis^ 
two  hot  and  two  cold,  and  various  entremets  and 
desserts.  A  favorite  entree  was  a  puree  of 
pistachio  nuts,  with  roasted  sheeps'  tails  on  silver 
spits  stuck  into  it.  The  hot  dishes  stood  on  silver 
heaters  filled  with  glowing  charcoal.  Between 
the  courses  little  pots  of  cream,  chocolate,  vanilla, 
and  coffee  were  actually  passed  and  actually 
eaten!  Chocolate  cream  to  fill  the  gap  between 
woodcock  and  foie-gras^  for  instance!  Cham- 
pagne-bottles stood  in  silver  coolers  at  each  corner 
of  the  table.  I  wonder  that  we  all  survived.  On 
the  other  hand,  when  Tante  Rose  or  my  mother  re- 
ceived the  visits  of  their  friends,  there  was  no 
afternoon  tea  to  offer  them,  as  nowadays.  The 
servants  merely  passed  round  little  glasses  of 
Spanish  wines  and  plates  of  small  biscuits.  The 
good  ladies  of  Landerneau  afforded,  I  imagine, 
much  amusement  to  my  mother  and  to  Tante 
Rose,  who,  though  a  native,  was  of  a  very  different 


,•^l 


■>.     V 


"I  had  only  to  sweep  up  the  rub- 
bish .  . .  and  carry  it  out  of  the 
wood  in  my  little  wheelbarrow" 


XANTE  ROSE  95 

caliber.  One  little  trait  I  remember  was  very 
illustrative  of  the  bourgeois  habit  of  mind.  At 
that  time,  as  now,  lengths  of  velvet  were  included 
in  every  corbeille  offered  to  a  bride  by  the  bride- 
groom's family,  and  the  velvet  dresses  made  from 
them  were  dignified  institutions  worn  year  after 
year.  One  knows  how  marked  and  unsightly  vel- 
vet soon  becomes  if  sat  upon,  and  it  was  a  wise  and 
crafty  fashion  to  have  a  breadth  of  perfectly 
matching  silk  introduced  between  the  full  folds  at 
the  back  of  these  dresses,  so  that  when  one  sat 
down  it  was  upon  the  silk.  It  was  in  regard  to 
this  sensible  contrivance  that  the  ladies  of  Lan- 
derneau  were  reported  to  declare  that  it  was 
strange  indeed  to  see  the  noblesse  so  miserly  that 
they  could  not  afford  a  whole  velvet  dress,  and 
therefore  let  silk  into  the  back. 

Some  of  Xante  Rose's  children  were,  like  her- 
self, very  clever  and  charming,  some  very  stupid, 
like  Xonton  Joson.  It  can  be  imagined  what 
games  we  all  had.  Once,  in  the  coach-house,  my 
older  cousins  put  young  Raoul  into  a  large  basket 
with  a  number  of  smooth  stones  under  him  and 


96      A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

told  him  that  they  were  eggs  and  that  if  he  were 
quiet  and  patient,  they  would  hatch  out.  Then 
by  means  of  a  rope  and  pulley  to  which  the  basket 
was  attached  (it  must  have  been  used  for  raising 
and  lowering  hay  and  fodder)  we  pulled  poor 
Raoul  up  to  the  rafters,  and  there  we  left  him  and 
forgot  all  about  him.  His  desolate  cries  were 
heard  after  a  time,  and  when  he  was  rescued,  it 
was  found  that  the  rocking  of  the  basket  had 
made  him  very  seasick. 

Of  all  our  games  the  best  were  those  in  the 
woods  of  La  Fontaine  Blanche.  This  property  of 
Tante  Rose's,  with  its  old  manor-house  dating 
from  the  time  of  Queen  Anne  of  Brittany,  was 
near  Landerneau,  and  since  papa  went  there 
nearly  every  day,  caring  for  it  as  it  it  were  his  own, 
we  were  able  to  go  with  him  and  take  full  pos- 
session of  the  beautiful  woods.  We  were  given 
planks  and  tools,  and  we  built  a  little  hut  on  the 
banks  of  the  stream.  I  was  so  young  that  my 
share  of  the  labors  was  unexacting,  as  I  had  only 
to  sweep  up  the  rubbish  left  by  the  builders  and 
carry  it  out  of  the  wood  in  my  little  wheelbarrow; 


XANTE  ROSE  97 

but  I  remember  that  pride  with  which  I  felt  my- 
self associated  in  any  capacity  with  such  marvels 
of  construction.  Not  only  was  the  hut  entirely 
built  by  my  cousins,  but  they  made  an  oven  inside 
it  and  even  fabricated  a  sort  of  earthenware  serv- 
ice with  the  clay  soil  found  along  the  banks  of  the 
stream.  It  would  never  fire  properly,  however, 
and  therefore  our  attempts  to  bake  bread  were  not 
successful. 

But  crepes^  as  pure-blooded  young  Bretons,  we 
could  make,  and  our  parents  were  often  enter- 
tained by  us  and  regaled  with  them  as  they  sat 
under  the  trees.  Oh,  how  happy  we  were  I  The 
woods  were  full  of  lilies  of  the  valley,  and  our 
hut  had  been  baptized  by  the  cure  of  Landerneau 
the  chateau  de  la  Muguetterie,  while  we  were 
called  Robinson  Crusoes,  and  this  was  to  us  all  our 
greatest  glory. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    DEMOISELLES    DE    COATNAMPRUN 

ACROSS  the  way  from  our  house  in  Lan- 
derneau  lived  two  old  maiden  ladies,  the 
Demoiselles  de  Coatnamprun.  The  Marquis  and 
Marquise  de  Coatnamprun,  their  father  and 
mother,  had  died  many  years  ago,  and  most  of 
the  small  fortune  had  been  filched  from  them  in 
some  iniquitous  lawsuit.  I  remember  them  very 
clearly,  for  I  often  went  to  see  them  with  maman 
and  Tante  Rose,  who  watched  over  them  and  pro- 
tected them;  gentle,  austere  figures,  dressed  al- 
ways in  threadbare  black,  almost  like  nuns,  with 
long,  white  bone  rosaries  hanging  at  their  sides, 
and  on  their  breasts,  tied  with  a  red  cord,  great 
crucifixes  of  brass  and  wood.  Around  their  necks 
they  wore  white  handkerchiefs  folded,  the  points 
behind,  and  when  they  went  out,  old-fashioned 
black  capotes^  which  were  large  bonnets  mounted 


THE  DEMOISELLES  99 

and  drawn  on  wires,  a  quilling  of  white  inside 
around  the  face.  The  elder  was  called  Ismenie, 
and  the  younger  Suzette;  they  had  the  tenderest 
love  for  each  other. 

Their  house  was  one  of  the  oldest  in  Landerneau 
and  was  covered  with  strange  carvings.  The 
great  knocker  always  fascinated  me,  for  it  repre- 
sented a  devil  with  his  pitchfork,  and  one  lifted 
the  pitchfork  to  knock.  Almost  always  it  was 
one  of  the  Demoiselles  de  Coatnamprun  who 
answered,  and  she  always  held  a  clean  white 
handkerchief  by  the  center,  the  points  shaken 
out,  and  always  swept  us,  as  she  appeared 
before  us  in  the  doorway,  a  wonderful,  old-fash- 
ioned, stately  court  curtsey.  The  sisters  were 
plain,  with  dark,  mild  eyes,  faded  skins,  and  pale, 
withered  lips;  but  their  teeth  were  beautiful,  and 
they  had  abundant  hair.  Ismenie's  features  were 
harsh,  and  her  half-closed,  near-sighted  eyes  gave 
her  a  cold  and  haughty  expression;  but  in  reality 
she  was  a  lamb  of  gentleness,  and  no  one  seeing  the 
sisters  in  their  poverty  would  have  taken  them  for 
anything  but  grandes  dames. 


100    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

When  we  were  ushered  into  the  house  it  was 
usually  into  the  dining-room  that  we  went.  The 
drawing-room,  which  was  called  the  salle  de  com- 
pagnie,  was  used  only  on  ceremonious  occasions, 
Easter,  the  bishop's  visit,  or  when  the  noblesse 
from  the  surrounding  country  called,  and  the 
proudest  among  them  were  proud  to  do  so.  So  in 
the  salle  de  compagnie^  where  engravings  of  the 
family  coats  of  arms  hung  along  the  walls,  the 
ugly,  massive  mahogany  furniture  was  usually 
shrouded  in  cotton  covers,  and  it  was  in  the  din- 
ing-room that  the  sisters  sat,  making  clothes  for 
the  poor.  Here  the  pictures  interested  me  very 
much;  they  were  naif^  brightly  colored  prints 
bought  at  the  Landerneau  fairs,  and  representing 
events  in  the  lives  of  the  saints.  St.  Christopher, 
bending  with  his  staff  in  the  turbulent  stream, 
bore  on  his  shoulder  a  child  so  tiny  that  I  could 
never  imagine  why  its  weight  should  incommode 
him,  and  another  doll-like  child  stood  on  the  vol- 
ume held  by  St.  Anthony  of  Padua.  The  oil- 
cloth cover  on  the  table  had  all  the  kings  and 
queens  of  France  marching  in  procession  round  its 


"^v^-^ 


'"^_. 


ix 


^1^ 


'^ffi. 


ite^'^^^NS«v  •i^  .' 


«.c--,^i     ^ 

-^1 


v-f 


> 


■^■k^3k 


p 


i     < 


x:^ 


"Gentle,  austere  figures,  dressed 
always  in  threadbare  black" 


THE  DEMOISELLES  103 

border,  the  dates  of  their  reigns  printed  above 
their  heads.  The  chairs  were  common  straw-bot- 
tomed kitchen  chairs.  Maman  sometimes  tried  to 
persuade  the  sisters  to  paint  the  chairs,  saying  that 
if  they  were  painted  bright  red,  for  instance,  it 
would  make  the  room  so  much  more  cheerful. 
But  to  any  such  suggestion  they  would  reply,  with 
an  air  of  gentle  surprise:  "Oh,  but  maman  had 
them  like  that.  We  can't  change  anything  that 
maman  had."  Their  large  bedroom  was  on  the 
first  floor,  looking  out  at  the  street.  It  was  a  most 
dismal  room.  The  two  four-posted  beds,  side  by 
side,  had  canopies  and  curtains  of  old  tapestry, 
but  this  was  all  covered  with  black  cambric  muslin 
and  had  the  most  funereal  air  imaginable.  At  the 
head  of  Ismenie's  bed,  crossed  against  the  black, 
were  two  bones  that  she  had  brought  from  the 
family  vault  on  some  occasion  when  the  coffins 
had  been  moved  or  opened.  The  only  cheerful 
thing  I  remember  was  a  childish  little  etagere  fast- 
ened in  a  corner  and  filled  with  the  waxen  figures 
of  the  petit  Jesus^  and  the  tiny  china  dogs,  cats  and 
birds  that  had  been  among  their  presents  on  Christ- 


104    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

mas  mornings.  To  give  an  idea  of  the  extreme 
simplicity  and  innocence  of  the  Demoiselles  de 
Coatnamprun  I  may  say  here  that  to  the  end  of 
their  lives  they  firmly  believed  that  le  petit  Jesus 
himself  came  down  their  kitchen  chimney  on 
Christmas  eve  and  left  their  presents  for  them 
on  the  kitchen  table,  he  petit  Jesus^  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  was  on  these  occasions  impersonated  by 
maman  and  Tante  Rose.  Tante  Rose  always  had 
the  key  of  the  sisters'  house,  so  that  at  any  time  she 
could  go  in  and  see  that  nothing  was  amiss  with 
ses  enfants^  as  she  tenderly  called  them, — and  in- 
deed to  the  end  they  remained  lovely  and  in- 
genuous children, — so  she  and  tnaman^  when  the 
sisters  were  safely  asleep,  would  steal  into  the 
house  and  pile  every  sort  of  good  thing,  from  legs 
of  mutton  to  galettes,  upon  the  table,  and  fill  the 
garden  sabots  that  stood  ready  with  bonbons, 
handkerchiefs,  and  the  little  china  figures  of  ani- 
mals the  sisters  so  cherished.  And  always  there 
was  a  waxen  figure  of  le  petit  Jesus  and  the  card 
with  which  he  made  his  intention  clear;  for  ''Aux 


Old  Kerandraon 


THE  DEMOISELLES  107 

Demoiselles  de  Coatnamprun^  du  petit  Jesus'^  was 
written  upon  it. 

Other  instances  of  the  sisters'  ignorance  of  life 
and  the  world  I  might  give,  but  they  would  simply 
be  received  with  incredulity.  Such  types  no 
longer  exist,  and  even  then  the  sisters  were  unique. 
I  do  not  believe  that  in  all  their  lives  they  knew  an 
evil  thought;  they  were  incapable  of  any  form  of 
envy  or  malice  or  uncharitableness,  and  filled  with 
delight  at  any  good  fortune  that  came  to  others 
and  with  gratitude  for  their  own  lot  in  life. 
Sometimes  Suzette,  in  the  intimacy  of  friends, 
would  refer  with  simple  sadness  to  the  one  drama, 
if  such  it  can  be  called,  that  had  befallen  them. 
"Oui^"  she  would  say,  "Ismenie  a  eu  un  chagrin 
d' amour.''  Once,  when  they  were  young,  in  their 
parents'  lifetime,  an  officer  had  been  quartered 
with  them,  a  kindly,  intelligent,  honest  young  fel- 
low of  the  bourgeoisie.,  and  at  once  aware  of  the 
atmosphere  of  distinction  that  surrounded  him. 
He  showed  every  attention  to  the  sisters,  and  poor 
Ismenie    found    him    altogether    charming.     He 


io8    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

never  even  guessed  at  her  attachment.  Indeed, 
no  such  a  marriage  at  that  time  would  have  been 
possible,  but  she  was  broken-hearted  when  he  went 
away.  Her  sister  was  her  confidante,  and  this 
was  the  chagrin  d' amour  to  which  Suzette  some- 
times referred. 

I  have  said  that  when  they  walked  out  they 
wore  capotes.  On  one  occasion  Mile.  Suzette 
found  in  a  drawer,  among  old  rubbish  put  away,  a 
crumpled  artificial  rose,  a  pink  rose,  and  had  the 
strange  idea  of  fastening  it  in  front  of  her  capote. 
Ismenie,  when  her  near-sighted  eyes  caught  sight 
of  it,  stopped  short  in  the  street  and  peered  at  her 
sister  in  astonishment.  "But,  Suzette,  what  have 
you  there?"  she  asked.  Suzette  bashfully  told 
her  that  she  had  found  the  rose  and  thought  it 
might  look  pretty.  "No,  no,"  said  Ismenie,  turn- 
ing with  her  sister  back  to  the  house,  "you  must 
not  wear  it.  Maman  never  wore  anything  in  her 
capote."  It  required  all  my  mother's  skill  to  per- 
suade them  to  allow  her  to  dress  their  hair  for 
them  on  the  occasion  of  an  evening  party  at  Tante 
Rose's,  to  which,  as  usual,  they  were  going,  as 


i 


"They  were  buried  together  on  the  same  day" 


THE  DEMOISELLES  in 

''mamari"  had  gone,  wearing  black-lace  caps. 
"Voyons,  but  you  have  such  pretty  hair,"  said 
maman.  "Let  me  only  show  you  how  charmingly 
it  can  be  done."  They  were  tempted,  yet  uncer- 
tain and  very  anxious,  and  then  maman  had  the 
opportune  memory  of  an  old  picture  of  the  mar- 
quise in  youth,  her  hair  done  in  puffs  upon  her 
forehead.  She  brought  it  out  triumphantly,  and 
the  sisters  yielded.  They  could  consent  to  have 
their  hair  done  as  '' tnamarC s"  had  been  done  in  her 
youth. 

We  children  always  went  with  our  parents  to 
the  evening  parties  in  Landemeau.  Maman  did 
not  like  to  leave  us,  and  it  will  be  remembered 
that  in  those  days  one  dined  at  five  o'clock  and 
that  we  children  had  all  our  meals  except  break- 
fast with  our  parents.  It  was  at  a  dinner-party 
at  Tante  Rose's  that  Mile.  Suzette,  next  whom  I 
sat,  said  to  me  smiling,  with  her  shy  dignity,  "I 
have  a  present  here  for  a  little  girl  who  has  been 
good,"  and  she  drew  a  small  paper  parcel  from 
the  silk  reticule  that  hung  beside  the  rosary  at  her 
side.     I  opened  it,  and  found,  to  my  delight,  a 


112     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

sugar  mouse  and  a  tiny  pipe  made  of  red  sugar 
such  as  I  knew  t?2afnan  would  never  allow  us  to 
eat  when  we  went  to  the  confectioner's.  But  here, 
in  the  presence  of  Mile.  Suzette,  and  the  gift  a 
gift  from  her,  I  felt  that  I  was  safe,  and  I  de- 
voured mouse  and  pipe  at  once,  quite  aware  of 
maman's  amused  and  rallying  glance  from  across 
the  table.  "I  saw  you,"  she  said  to  me  afterward. 
"Little  ne'er-do-well,  you  know  that  I  could  not 
forbid  it  when  Mademoiselle  Suzette  was  there  I" 

The  only  flower  that  grew  in  the  Demoiselles 
de  Coatnamprun's  garden  was  heliotrope,  for  that 
had  been  ''mainarCs'''  favorite  flower.  They  were 
poor  gardeners,  and  the  little  bonne  who  came  in 
by  the  day  to  do  the  housework  could  give  them 
no  help  in  the  garden.  So  it  was  Tante  Rose, 
trotting  on  her  high  heels,  a  little  garden  fork  on 
her  shoulder,  who  appeared  to  do  battle  with  the 
moss  and  dandelions  and  to  restore  a  little  order. 
She  always  gave  to  this  service  the  air  of  a  delight- 
ful game,  and  indeed,  in  her  constant  care  of  the 
poor  old  ladies,  had  the  prettiest  skill  imaginable 
in  making  her  gifts  weigh  nothing. 


THE  DEMOISELLES  113 

"My  dears,"  she  would  say,  leaning  forward  to 
look  at  their  black  robes,  "are  n't  these  dresses 
getting  rather  shabby *?  Hasn't  the  time  come 
for  new  ones?" 

"They  are  shabby,"  Ismenie  would  answer 
sadly,  "  but  q^ue  voulez-vous^  clicre  Madame^  our 
means,  as  you  know,  are  so  narrow.  It  costs  so 
much  to  buy  a  dress.  We  could  hardly  afford 
new  ones  now." 

"But,  on  the  contrary,  it  does  n't  cost  so  much," 
Tante  Rose  would  say.  "I  know  some  excellent 
woolen  material,  the  very  thing  for  your  dresses, 
and  only  five  francs  for  the  length.  You  can  well 
afford  that,  can't  you?  So  I  '11  buy  it  for  you  and 
bring  it  to-morrow." 

And  so  she  would,  the  innocent  sisters  imagining 
five  francs  the  price  of  material  for  which  Tante 
Rose  paid  at  least  thirty.  Since  the  sisters  were 
very  proud,  for  all  their  gentleness,  and  could  con- 
sent to  accept  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  charity, 
and  since  indeed  they  could  hardly  have  lived  at 
all  on  what  they  had,  Tante  Rose  had  woven  a 
far-reaching  conspiracy  about  them.     Her  trades- 


114    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

people  had  orders  to  sell  their  meat  and  vegetables 
to  the  Demoiselles  de  Coatnamprun  at  about  a 
fifth  of  their  value.  Packets  of  coffee  and  sugar 
arrived  at  their  door,  and  milk  and  cream  every 
morning,  and  when  they  asked  the  messenger  what 
the  price  might  be,  he  would  say:  "Ces  dames  reg- 
leront  le  compte  avec  Monsieur  le  Cure^'  and 
since  they  did  not  like  to  refuse  gifts  from  the 
cure,  the  innocent  plot  was  never  discovered.  Of 
course  fruits  from  Tante  Rose's  garden  and  cakes 
from  her  kitchen  were  things  that  could  be  ac- 
cepted. She  would  bring  them  herself,  and  have 
a  slice  of  galette  or  a  fig  from  the  big  basketful 
with  them.  They  were  rather  greedy,  poor  dar- 
lings, and  since  any  money  they  could  save  went  to 
the  poor,  they  could  never  buy  such  dainties  for 
themselves.  One  extravagance,  however,  they 
had :  when  they  came  out  to  pay  a  visit,  a  piece  of 
knitting  was  always  drawn  from  the  reticule,  and 
when  one  asked  what  it  was  one  was  told  in  a 
whisper:  "Silk  stockings — a  Christmas  present  for 
Suzette,"  or  Ismenie,  as  the  case  might  be.  Beau- 
tifully knitted,  fine,  openwork  stockings  they  were. 


THE  DEMOISELLES  115 

Another  contrivance  for  their  comfort  was  in- 
vented by  Xante  Rose.  They  were  great  cowards, 
afraid  of  the  dark  and  in  deadly  fear  of  the  pos- 
sible robbers  that  might  enter  their  house  at  night. 
Tante  Rose  arranged  that  when  they  went  to  bed 
a  lighted,  shaded  lamp  should  be  placed  in  their 
window,  the  shade  turned  toward  their  room,  the 
light  toward  the  street,  so  that  any  robbers  passing 
by  would  be  deceived  into  thinking  the  house 
still  on  foot  and  forego  their  schemes  for  break- 
ing in. 

Their  hearts  were  tender  toward  all  forms  of 
life.  I  can  see  one  of  them  rising  from  her  work 
to  rescue  a  fly  that  had  fallen  into  trouble  and, 
holding  it  delicately  by  the  wings,  lift  the  persi- 
ennes to  let  it  fly  away.  One  day  in  their  garden 
I  cried  out  in  disgust  at  the  sight  of  a  great  earth- 
worm writhing  across  a  border. 

"Oh,  the  horrid  worm  I  Quick!  A  trowel, 
Mademoiselle,  to  cut  it  in  two." 

But  Mademoiselle  Suzette  came  to  look  with 
grieved  eyes. 

"And  why  kill  the  poor  creature,  Sophie*?     It 


ii6    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

does  us  no  harm,"  she  said,  and  helped  the  worm 
to  disappear  in  the  soft  earth. 

The  Demoiselles  de  Coatnamprun  died  one 
winter  of  some  pulmonary  affection  and  within  a 
day  of  one  another.  They  died  with  the  simplic- 
ity and  sincerity  that  had  marked  all  their  lives, 
and  toward  the  end  they  were  heard  to  murmur 
continually,  while  they  smiled  as  if  in  sleep, 
''Maman — PapaJ" 

Ismenie  died  first;  but  since  it  was  seen  that 
Suzette  had  only  a  few  hours  to  live,  the  body  was 
kept  lying  on  the  bed  near  hers,  and  she  did  not 
know  that  her  beloved  sister  had  been  taken  from 
her.     They  were  buried  together  on  the  same  day. 

There  was  another  and  very  different  old  lady 
in  Landerneau  of  whom  I  was  very  fond  and 
whom,  since  she  took  a  great  fancy  to  me,  I  saw 
often.  Her  daughter  was  a  friend  of  mamarCs 
and  made  a  mesalliance  that  caused  the  doors  of 
Landerneau  to  close  upon  her.  Maman,  how- 
ever, remained  devoted  to  her,  and  continued  to 
see  as  much  of  her  as  ever,  and  her  mother,  my  old 


V..t: 


"In  the  days  of  the  Terror  ...  it 
had  been  used  ...  as  a  prison" 


THE  DEMOISELLES  119 

friend,  was  entirely  indifferent  to  the  doors,  closed 
or  open,  of  Landerneau.  She  wore  a  brightly  col- 
ored Turkish  silk  handkerchief  tied  turban-wise 
about  her  head,  and  soft  gray-leather  riding  boots, 
— men's  boots, — so  that  she  was  known  in  her 
quarter  as  Chat-botte.  In  her  own  house  she  wore 
men's  dress-breeches,  short  jacket,  and  high  boots. 
Her  feet  were  remarkably  small,  and  the  wave  of 
hair  on  her  forehead  was  as  black  as  jet.  She 
was  very  downright  and  ready  of  speech,  and  used 
to  talk  to  me  as  though  I  were  a  person  of  her  own 
age.  "Do  you  see,  Sophie,"  she  would  say,  "my 
poor  daughter  is  a  great  goose.  She  struggles  to 
be  received,  and  gets  only  buffets  for  her  pains. 
Why  give  oneself  so  much  trouble  for  nothing*?" 
The  disconsolate  daughter  and  the  son-in-law 
made  their  home  with  her  in  a  great  old  house 
standing  on  the  banks  of  the  river.  He  was  a 
wholesale  wine  merchant,  and  barrels  and  casks  of 
wine  stood  about  the  entrance.  My  old  friend 
lived  almost  entirely  in  her  own  room  on  the  first 
floor,  the  strangest  room.  It  was  at  once  spot- 
lessly  clean   and   completely   untidy.     The   bed 


120    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

had  no  posts  or  canopy  and  was  shaped  like  a 
cradle.  Bottles  of  salad-oil  stood  on  the  mantel- 
shelf, and  a  bunch  of  carrots  might  be  lying  on  the 
table  among  bundles  of  newspapers.  From  the 
windows  one  had  beautiful  views  up  and  down 
the  river  and  could  see  the  stone  bridge  that  had 
old  houses  built  upon  it.  Across  the  river  were 
her  gardens,  and  she  used  often  to  row  me  over 
to  them  and  to  show  me  the  immense  old  cherry- 
tree,  planted  by  her  grandfather,  that  grew  far 
down  the  river  against  the  walls  of  an  old  tower. 
This  tower  had  its  story,  and  I  could  not  sleep  at 
night  for  thinking  of  it.  In  her  girlhood  mad 
people  were  shut  up  there.  There  was  only  a 
dungeon-room,  and  the  water  often  rose  in  it  so 
that  the  forsaken  creatures  stood  up  to  their  knees 
in  water.  Food  was  thrown  to  them  through  the 
iron  bars  of  the  windows,  but  it  was  quite  insuffi- 
cient, and  she  gave  me  terrible  descriptions  of  the 
faces  she  used  to  see  looking  out,  ravenous  and  im- 
ploring. She  remembered  that  the  bones  pro- 
truded from  the  knuckles  of  one  old  man  as  he 
clutched  the  bars.     She  used  to  pile  loaves  of 


THE  DEMOISELLES  121 

bread  in  her  little  boat,  row  across  to  the  tower, 
and  fix  the  loaves  on  the  end  of  an  oar  so  that  she 
could  pass  them  up  to  the  window,  and  she  would 
then  see  the  mad  people  snatching  the  bread  apart 
and  devouring  it.  And  when  the  cherries  on  the 
great  tree  were  ripe  she  used  to  climb  up  into  the 
branches  and  bend  them  against  the  window  so 
that  they  might  gather  the  fruit  themselves  from 
among  the  leaves,  and  she  herself  would  gather  all 
she  could  reach  and  throw  them  in.  They  had 
not  even  straw  to  sleep  on.  When  one  of  them 
died,  the  body  was  taken  out,  and  this  was  all  the 
care  they  had.  Such  were  the  horrors  in  a  town 
where  people  across  the  river  quietly  ate  and  slept, 
and  the  church-bells  rang  all  day. 


CHAPTER  VII 


BON    PAPA 


MY  most  vivid  recollections  of  Grandfather 
de  Rosval  place  him  at  Landerneau, 
where  he  would  stop  with  us  on  his  way  to  Quim- 
per  during  his  tours  of  inspection.  His  arrivals  in 
the  sleepy  little  town  were  great  affairs  and  caused 
immense  excitement:  post-chaise,  postilion,  whips 
cracking,  horns  blowing,  and  a  retinue  of  Parisian 
servants.  We  children  never  had  more  than  a 
glimpse  of  him  at  first,  for  he  withdrew  at  once  to 
his  own  rooms  to  rest  and  go  through  his  papers. 
When  he  made  his  entry  into  the  salon, — the  salon 
of  the  slippery  parquet  and  the  nodding  manda- 
rins,— all  the  household  was  ranged  on  each  side, 
as  if  for  the  arrival  of  a  sovereign,  and  we  had  all 
to  drop  deep  curtseys  before  him. 

He  was  a  rather  imposing  figure,  with  splendid 
clothes,  the  coat  thickly  embroidered  along  the 


Grandfather  de  Rosval 


BON  PAPA  125 

edge  with  golden  oak-leaves,  and  a  fine,  hand- 
some head;  but  he  was  enormously,  even  ridicu- 
lously, stout.  With  an  often  terrifying  and  even 
repellent  severity  he  mingled  the  most  engaging 
playfulness,  and  our  childish  feelings  toward  him 
were  strangely  compounded  of  dislike  and  admira- 
tion. 

When  he  arrived  in  the  salon  a  lackey  came  be- 
hind him,  carrying  a  large  linen  bag  filled  with  a 
sweetmeat  bought  at  Seugnot's,  the  great  Parisian 
confectioner.  I  always  associate  these  sweetmeats 
with  bon  papa.  They  were  called  croquignoles^ 
were  small,  hard,  yet  of  the  consistency  of  soft 
chalk  when  one  bit  into  them,  and  glazed  with 
pink,  white,  or  yellow.  After  the  salutations,  bon 
papa  would  take  up  his  position  before  the  mantel- 
piece and  beckon  the  servant  to  give  him  the  bag 
of  croquignoles.  We  children,  quivering  with  ex- 
citement, each  of  us  already  provided  with  a  small 
basket,  stood  ready,  and  as  bon  papa.,  with  a  noble 
gesture,  scattered  the  handfuls  of  croquignoles  far 
and  wide,  we  flung  ourselves  upon  them,  scram- 
bling, falling,  and  filling  our  baskets,  with  much 


126     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

laughter  and  many  recriminations.  Then,  besides 
the  little  case  for  jna?nan,  also  from  Seugnot's, 
filled  with  tablets  of  a  delicious  sucre-de-pomme 
in  every  flavor,  were  more  dignified  presents, 
bracelets  and  rings  for  her  and  for  our  Tante  de 
Laisieu  and  boxes  of  beautiful  toys  for  us.  The 
only  cloud  cast  over  these  occasions  was  that  after 
having  distributed  all  his  bounties,  bon  papa  sat 
down,  drew  a  roll  of  manuscript  from  his  pocket, 
and  composed  himself  to  read  in  a  sonorous  voice 
poems  of  his  own  composition.  Their  theme,  in- 
variably, was  the  delight  of  reentering  one's  fam- 
ily and  country,  and  they  were  very  pompous  and 
very  long,  sometimes  moving  bon  papa  almost  to 
tears.  The  comic  scene  of  family  prayers  that 
followed  was  pure  relief,  for  even  we  children  felt 
it  comic  to  see  bon  papa  praying. 

"And  are  they  good  children?"  he  would  ask. 
"Have  they  said  their  prayers'?" 

"Not  yet,  mon  pere^"'  maman  would  answer. 
"They  always  say  their  prayers  at  bedtime." 
But  bon  papa  was  not  to  be  so  deterred  from  yet 
another  ceremony. 


'The  chateau  was  one  of 
the  oldest  in  Finisterre" 


BON  PAPA  129 

"Good,  good  I"  he  would  reply.  "We  will  all 
say  the  evening  prayers  together,  then." 

And  when  we  had  all  obediently  knelt  down 
around  the  room,  hon  papa  recited  the  prayers  in 
the  same  complacent,  sonorous  voice,  making  mag- 
nificent signs  of  the  cross  the  while.  On  one  of 
these  occasions  we  were  almost  convulsed  by  poor 
little  Ernest,  whom  hon  papa  had  taken  in  his 
arms,  and  who  was  so  much  alarmed  by  the  great 
gestures  going  on  over  his  head  that  he  broke  at 
last  into  a  prolonged  wail  and  had  to  be  carried 
hastily  away. 

One  of  bon  papa's  poetic  works  I  can  still  re- 
member, of  a  very  different  and  more  endearing 
character.  I  was  taken  ill  one  morning  while  we 
were  living  with  him  in  Paris  and  had  been  given 
to  console  me  by  a  cousin  of  ours  staying  with  us, 

the  Duchesse  de  M ,  a  delicious  little  purse  in 

white,  knitted  silk,  embroidered  with  pale  blue  for- 
get-me-nots. I  told  maman  that  I  wished  very 
much  to  show  this  purse  to  bon  papa,  and  that  he 
should  be  informed  of  my  illness.  So  I  wrote  him 
a  note,  and  it  was  taken,  with  the  purse,  to  his 


130     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

room.  Presently  the  little  parcel,  much  heavier, 
was  brought  back  to  me,  and  on  opening  my  purse, 
I  found  inside  it  a  centime,  a  liard,  a  sou — every 
coin,  in  fact,  up  to  and  including  a  golden  twenty- 
franc  piece.  And  this  is  the  poem  that  was  sent 
with  the  purse : 

"Vous  voulez  jeune  Princesse 
Que  je  me  rends  pres  de  vous? 
Que  je  baise  de  votre  altesse 
Les  pieds,  les  mains,  et  les  genoux? 
Dans  un  instant  je  vais  me  rendre 
A  vos  desirs  et  a  vos  vceux, 
Mais  vous  me  permettrez  de  prendre 
Deux  baisers  sur  vos  beaux  yeux  bleus." 

Such  a  grandfather,  it  must  be  admitted,  had 
advantages  as  well  as  charms,  yet  our  memory  of 
him  was  always  clouded  by  the  one  or  two  acts 
of  cruel  severity  we  had  witnessed  and  of  which 
I  could  not  trust  myself  to  speak. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LE    MARQUIS    DE    PLOEUC 

IN  the  Chateau  de  Ker-Guelegaan,  near  Quim- 
per,  lived  an  old  friend  of  my  family's,  the 
Marquis  de  Ploeuc.  The  chateau  was  one  of  the 
oldest  in  Finisterre,  an  immense  weather-beaten 
pile  with  a  moat,  a  drawbridge,  a  great  crenellated 
tower,  and  a  turret  that,  springing  from  the  first 
story,  seemed,  with  its  high-pointed  roof,  to  be 
suspended  in  the  air.  Tall,  dark  trees  rose  in  or- 
dered majesty  about  the  chateau,  and  before  it  a 
wide  band  of  lawn,  called  a  tapis  vert,  ran  to  the 
lodge-gates  that  opened  on  the  highroad.  From 
the  upper  windows  one  saw  the  blue  Brittany  sea. 
Along  the  whole  length  of  the  front  fagade  ran  a 
stone  terrace  with  seven  wide  steps;  the  windows 
of  the  salle  d'honneur  opened  upon  this,  and  the 
windows  of  the  petit  salon  and  the  dining-  and  bil- 
liard-room.    The  furniture  in  the  salle  d'honneur 

131 


132     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

was  of  Louis  XV  white  lacquer,  court  chairs,  and 
tabourets  de  cour.  There  were  tall  mirrors  all 
along  the  walls,  and  in  the  corners  hung  four  great 
crystal  chandeliers.  The  curtains  and  portieres 
were  of  a  heavy,  white  silk  that  had  become  gray 
with  time;  they  were  scattered  with  bouquets  of 
faded  flowers,  and  caught  up  and  looped  together 
with  knots  of  ribbon  that  had  once  been  rose-col- 
ored. This  glacial  and  majestic  room  was  seldom 
used ;  it  was  in  the  petit  salon^  leading  from  it,  that 
guests  usually  sat.  Here  the  chairs  were  carved 
along  their  tops  with  garlands  of  roses  and  ribbons 
so  delicate  that  we  children  were  specially  forbid- 
den to  touch  them.  The  walls  were  hung  with 
tapestries,  at  which  I  used  often  to  gaze  with  de- 
light. One  saw  life-sized  ladies  and  gentlemen 
dancing  in  stately  rounds  or  laughing  under  trees 
and  among  flowers  and  butterflies.  The  great 
dining-room  was  paneled  with  dark  wood  carved 
into  frames  around  the  portraits  of  ancestors  that 
were  ranged  along  it.  The  coffers  and  the  side- 
boards, where  the  silver  stood,  were  of  the  same 
carved  wood.     I  remember  once  going  down  to 


LE  MARQUIS  DE  PLOEUC        133 

peep  at  the  kitchen  in  the  basement,  and  the  dark 
immensity,  streaming,  as  it  were,  with  cooks,  serv- 
ants, kitchen-boys,  and  maids,  so  bewildered  and 
almost  frightened  me  that  I  never  ventured  there 
again. 

The  old  marquis  was  a  widower,  and  his  mar- 
ried daughters,  the  Marquise  de  L and  Mme. 

d'A ,  usually  lived  with  him  and  his  unmar- 
ried daughter  Rosine,  who  became  a  nun.  He 
was  a  splendid  old  gentleman,  tall,  with  a  noble 
carriage  and  severe,  yet  radiant,  countenance.  In 
the  daytime  he  dressed  always  in  gray  coat  and 
knee-breeches,  with  gray-and-black  striped  stock- 
ings and  buckled  shoes.  At  night  his  thick,  white 
hair  was  gathered  into  a  catogan^ — a  little  square 
black-silk  bag,  that  is  to  say, — tied  with  a  bow, 
and  he  wore  a  black-silk  suit.  On  festal  occa- 
sions, Christmas,  Easter,  or  his  fete-day,  he  be- 
came a  magnificent  figure  in  brocaded  coat  and 
white-satin  waistcoat  and  knee-breeches;  he  had 
diamond  shoe-  and  knee-buckles,  diamond  buttons 
on  his  waistcoat,  and  golden  aiguillettes  looped 
across  his  breast  and  shoulder. 


134    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

The  diamond  buckles  he  left  to  me,  to  be  given 
to  me  on  my  first  communion,  and  in  his  lifetime 
he  had  made  for  me  a  beautiful  missal  bound  in 
white  parchment  and  closed  with  a  diamond  and 
emerald  clasp;  inside  were  old  illuminations. 

In  his  youth  M.  de  Ploeuc  had  been  an  ofRcer 
of  the  Chouans,  and  he  was,  of  course,  a  passion- 
ate royalist.  He  always  wore  the  Croix  de  St. 
Louis,  a  fleur-de-lis,  with  the  little  cross  attached 
by  blue  ribbon.  I  asked  him  once  if  it  was  the 
same  sort  of  decoration  as  my  Grandfather  de 
Rosval's,  which,  I  said,  was  larger  and  was  tied 
with  red,  and  I  remember  the  kindly  and  ironic 
smile  of  my  old  friend  as  he  answered,  "Oh,  no; 
that  is  only  the  Legion  d'honneur." 

Brittany  had  many  marquises,  some  of  them 
also  old  and  distinguished;  but  he  was  the  doyen 
of  them  all,  and  was  always  called  simply  le  mar- 
quis. Any  disputes  or  difficulties  among  the  local 
noblesse  were  always  brought  to  him  for  his  de- 
cision, and  on  such  occasions,  if  the  discussions  be- 
came heated,  he  would  say,  "Palsan  bleu^  mes 
seigneurs^  il  me  semble  que  vous  vous  oubliez  ici^^ 


"He  was  a  splendid 
old    gentleman' 


LE  MARQUIS  DE  PLOEUC        137 

using  the  dignified  oath  already  becoming  obsolete. 
His  French  was  the  old  French  of  the  court.  He 
never,  for  instance,  said,  ''Je  vous  remercie"  but, 
''Je  vous  rends  graced 

Guests  at  Ker-Guelegaan  arrived  with  their 
own  horses  and  carriages  to  stay  a  month  or  more, 
and  open  house  was  kept.  Breakfast  was  at  six 
for  those  who  did  not  take  communion  at  the  mass 
that  was  celebrated  every  morning  in  the  chapel 
adjoining  the  chateau;  these  breakfasted  on  re- 
turning. It  was  permissible  for  ladies,  at  this 
early  hour,  to  appear  very  informally  in  peignoirs 
and  bigoudics.  Bigoudics  are  curl-papers  or  rib- 
bons. The  marquis  almost  always  took  commun- 
ion, but  he  usually  appeared  at  the  six  o'clock 
breakfast.  After  mass,  once  his  correspondence 
dealt  with,  he  played  billiards  with  Rosine,  the 
beautiful  girl  who  became  a  nun  in  the  order  of 
the  Carmelites,  an  order  so  strict  that  those  who 
entered  it  died,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  since 
their  relatives  never  saw  them  again,  and  at  that 
time  were  not  even  informed  of  their  death.  I  see 
Rosine  very  clearly,  bending  over  the  billiard- 


138     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

table  under  her  father's  fond  gaze,  and  I  can  also 
see  her  kneeling  to  pray  in  a  corner  of  the  petit 
salon.  It  was  with  such  simplicity  that  any  sus- 
picion of  affectation  or  parade  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. In  the  midst  of  a  conversation  she  would 
gently  ask  to  be  excused  and  would  go  there  apart 
and  pray,  sometimes  for  an  hour.  The  ladies 
quietly  gossiping  over  their  embroidery-frames 
took  it  quite  as  a  matter  of  course  that  Rosine 
should  be  praying  near  them. 

Dejeuner  was  at  ten,  and  it  was  then  that  one 
saw  how  strongly  feudal  customs  still  survived  at 
Ker-Guelegaan.  The  marquis  sat  at  the  head  of 
the  table,  and  behind  his  chair  stood  his  old  serv- 
ant Yvon,  dressed  in  Breton  mourning-costume  in 
memory  of  his  defunct  mistress;  that  is  to  say,  in 
blue,  black,  and  yellow.  The  other  servants  wore 
the  livery  of  the  house.  Half-way  down  the  ta- 
ble the  white  cloth  ended,  and  the  lower  half  had 
a  matting  covering.  Here  sat  all  the  farmers  of 
Ker-Guelegaan  and  their  families,  taking  their 
midday  meal  with  their  master,  while  M.  de 
Ploeuc  and  his  guests  and  family  sat  above.     We 


7\ 


^-n-i-i^jW    -    ^    V    ^'3,'_   •_-'  ^I'f 


^3 


t    V 


1    <--^  >^.-*»  Vli.--,  .- 


'^-fC        -      •      - 


1  ■^l 


'Guests  at  Ker-Guelegaan  arrived 
with  their  own  horses  and  carriages" 


LE  MARQUIS  DE  PLOEUC         141 

children  were  usually  placed  at  a  little  side-table. 
The  meal  aways  began  by  M.  de  Ploeuc  rising  and 
blessing  the  company  with  two  outstretched  fin- 
gers, like  a  bishop,  and  he  then  recited  a  benedic- 
tion. He  was  always  served  first,  another  sur- 
vival of  patriarchal  custom,  forced  upon  him, 
rather,  for  I  remember  his  protesting  against  it  and 
wishing  my  mother,  who  sat  next  him,  to  be  served 
before  him;  but  she  would  not  hear  of  it.  Dur- 
ing the  repasts  a  violinist  and  a  ^m/(?z/-player, 
dressed  in  his  Breton  costume,  played  to  us. 

After  luncheon  the  ladies  drove  or  rode  or 
walked  as  the  fancy  took  them,  or,  assem- 
bled in  the  petit  salon,  talked  over  their  work. 
On  hot  days  the  blinds  would  be  drawn  down 
before  the  open  windows,  but  in  the  angle  of  each 
window  was  fixed  a  long  slip  of  mirror,  so  that 
from  every  corner  one  could  see  if  visitors,  wel- 
come or  unwelcome,  were  driving  up  to  the  perron. 
Gouter,  at  three,  consisted  of  bread,  fruit,  and 
milk,  and  dinner  was  at  five.  After  that  the  la- 
dies and  gentlemen  assembled  in  the  petit  salon 
and    talked,    told   ghost-stories   and   legends,    or 


142     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

played  games  till  the  very  early  bedtime  of  the 
place  and  period. 

This  was  the  train  de  vie  at  Ker-Guelegaan ;  but 
my  memories  of  the  place  center  almost  entirely 
around  the  figure  of  my  old  friend.  I  was  his 
constant  companion.  When  he  rode  out  after 
luncheon  to  visit  his  farms,  I  would  sit  before  him 
on  his  old  horse  Pluton.  He  never  let  Pluton  gal- 
lop for  fear  of  tiring  him.  "Do  you  see,  ma  pe- 
tite^' he  would  say,  "Pluton  is  a  comrade  who  has 
never  failed  me.  He  has  earned  a  peaceful  old 
age."  We  passed,  in  the  wood  behind  the  cha- 
teau, a  monument  of  a  Templar  that  frightened 
and  interested  me.  He  lay  with  his  hands  crossed 
over  his  sword,  his  feet  stayed  against  a  couchant 
hound,  and  I  could  not  understand  why  he  wore  a 
knitted  coat.  My  old  friend  burst  out  laughing 
when  I  questioned  him,  and  said  that  I  was  as 
ignorant  as  a  little  carp,  and  that  it  was  high  time 
I  went  to  the  Sacre  Cceur.  He  told  me  that  the 
knitted  coat  was  a  coat  of  mail,  and  tried  to  instil 
a  little  history  into  my  mind,  telling  me  of  the 
crusades  and  St.  Louis;  but  I  am  afraid  that  my 


-^^'V 


"Maman  wrote  secretly 
to  bon  papa  in  Paris" 


LE  MARQUIS  DE  PLOEUC        145 

mind  soon  wandered  away  to  Pluton's  gently 
pricked  ears  and  to  the  wonders  of  the  woods  that 
surrounded  us.  We  had  walks  together,  too,  and 
went  one  day  to  the  sea-shore,  where  there  was  a 
famous  grotto  often  visited  by  strangers.  When 
we  arrived  at  the  black  arch  among  the  rocks  and 
I  heard  it  was  called  the  Devil's  Grot,  I  was  ter- 
rified, clinging  to  M.  de  Ploeuc's  hand  and  re- 
fusing to  enter. 

"But  why  not,  Sophie  *?  Why  not^"  he  ques- 
tioned me.  "I  am  here  to  take  care  of  you,  and 
there  is  no  danger  at  all.  See,  Yann  is  lighting 
the  torches  to  show  us  the  way." 

"But  the  devil — the  devil  will  get  me,"  I  whis- 
pered; "Jeannie  told  me  so." 

Jeannie,  indeed,  was  in  the  habit  of  punishing 
or  frightening  me  by  tales  of  the  devil  and  his 
fork  and  tail  and  flames,  and  of  how  he  would 
come  and  carry  off  disobedient  little  girls;  so  it 
was  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  I  feared  to  enter 
his  grot.  I  imagined  that  he  himself  lurked  there 
and  would  certainly  carry  me  off,  for  I  was  well 
aware  that  I  was  often  very  disobedient.     M.  de 


146     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

Ploeuc  sat  down  on  a  rock,  took  me  on  his  knee, 
and  said : 

"It  is  very  wrong  of  Jeannie  to  fill  your  head 
with  such  nonsense,  my  little  one.  Nothing  like 
her  devil  exists  in  the  whole  world,  and  you  must 
pay  no  attention  to  her  stories." 

He  told  me  that  the  cavern  was  filled  with  beau- 
tiful stalactites,  like  great  clusters  of  diamonds, 
and  was  so  gentle  and  merry  and  reasonable  that 
the  devil  was  exorcised  from  my  imagination  for- 
ever, and  I  consented  to  enter  the  grotto. 

Yann  and  the  guide,  a  young  farmer  of  Ker- 
Guelegaan,  led  us  in  with  their  lighted  torches, 
and  I  suddenly  saw  before  me,  strangely  illum- 
inated, a  somber,  yet  gorgeous,  fairy-land.  Dia- 
monds indeed  I  Pillars  of  diamonds  rose  from  the 
rocky  floor  to  the  roof,  and  pendants  hung  in  long 
clusters,  glittering  in  inconceivable  vistas  of  splen- 
dor, I  was  so  dazzled  and  amazed  that  I  gave 
the  vaguest  attention  to  M.  de  Ploeuc's  explana- 
tion of  the  way  in  which  the  stalactites  were 
formed  among  the  rocks.  Indeed,  that  night  I 
could  not  sleep,  still  seeing  diamond  columns  and 


%^J 


O' 


"As  a  country  gentleman  he  had 
lived  and  as  a  country  gentle- 
man he  intended  to  go  on  living" 


LE  MARQUIS  DE  PLOEUC         149 

pillars,  and  my  dear  old  friend  was  full  of  self- 
reproach  next  day  when  he  heard  that  during  the 
night  the  Devil's  Grot  had  given  me  a  fever. 

Sometimes  the  Marquis  de  L accompanied 

us  on  our  expeditions,  and  sometimes  I  was  even 
left  in  his  charge  for  an  afternoon.  I  disliked  this 
very  much,  for  he  had  no  amusing  stories  to  tell 
me  and  walked  very  fast,  and  when  my  pace 
flagged,  he  would  pause  to  look  at  me  reproach- 
fully, tapping  his  foot  on  the  ground,  and  crying 
out,  as  though  I  were  one  of  his  horses,  "Get  up  I 
Get  up!" 

M.  de  Ploeuc  often  took  me,  after  lunch,  into 
his  little  study  and  played  the  flute  to  me.  I 
liked  being  in  the  study,  but  it  rather  frightened 
me  to  see  my  old  friend  remove  his  teeth  before  be- 
ginning to  play.  Their  absence  sadly  altered  his 
beautiful  and  stately  countenance,  and  gave,  be- 
sides, an  odd,  whistling  timbre  to  his  music. 
Still,  I  listened  attentively,  looking  away  now  and 
then  from  his  rapt,  concentrated  countenance  to 
the  tapis  vert  outside,  where  the  cows  were  crop- 
ping the  short  grass,  or  glancing  around  rather 


150    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

shrinkingly  at  the  headless  bust  of  Marie  Antoi- 
nette that  stood  on  the  mantelpiece.  The  head 
lay  beside  the  bust,  and  there  was,  even  to  my 
childish  imagination,  a  terrible  beauty  in  the  proud 
shoulders  thus  devastated.  This  was  one  of  two 
such  busts  that  had  been  decapitated  by  the  Revo- 
lutionists. The  other  belonged,  I  think,  later  on, 
to  the  Empress  Eugenie.  When  the  marquis  had 
finished  his  thin,  melancholy  airs,  it  was  my  turn 
to  perform,  and  that  I  liked  much  better.  I  saw 
that  he  loved  to  hear  the  old  Breton  songs  sung  in 
my  sweet,  piping  little  voice,  and  it  was  especially 
pleasant,  our  music  over,  to  be  rewarded  by  being 
given  chocolate  pastils  from  a  little  enamel  box 
that  stood  on  the  writing-desk.  While  I  softly 
crunched  the  pastils  M.  de  Ploeuc  told  me  about 
the  countries  where  the  plant  from  which  the  choc- 
olate came  grew.  It  was  not  at  all  common  in 
Brittany  at  that  time,  and  the  pastils  much  less 
sweet  than  our  modern  bon  bons.  M.  de  Ploeuc 
also  carried  for  his  own  delectation  small  violet 
and  peppermint  lozenges  in  a  little  gold  box  that 
he  drew  from  his  waistcoat-pocket,  and  these  gave 


LE  MARQUIS  DE  PLOEUC         151 

the  pleasantest  fragrance  to  his  kiss.  I  often  sat 
on  with  him  in  the  study,  looking  at  the  pictures  in 
the  books  he  gave  me  while  he  read  or  wrote.  He 
wore  on  the  third  finger  of  his  right  hand  an  odd 
black  ring  that  had  a  tiny  magnifying-glass  fixed 
upon  it,  and  while  he  read  his  hand  moved  gently 
across  the  page. 

I  owe  a  great  deal  to  this  dear  old  friend.  He 
took  the  deepest  interest  in  my  deportment,  and 
maman  was  specially  delighted  that  he  should  ex- 
tirpate from  my  speech  provincial  words  and  in- 
tonations. He  entirely  broke  me  of  the  bad  hab- 
its of  shrugging  my  shoulders  and  biting  my 
nails. 

"Only  wicked  men  and  women  bite  their  nails," 
he  told  me,  and  pointed  out  to  me  as  a  terrible 
warning  the  beautiful  and  coquettish  Mme.  de 

G ,  one  of  his  guests,  who  had  bitten  her  nails 

to  the  quick  and  quite  ruined  the  appearance  of 
her  hands. 

"And  is  she  so  wicked  *?"  I  asked.  At  which  he 
laughed  a  little,  and  said  that  she  must  become  so 
if  she  continued  to  bite  her  nails.     He  made  me 


152    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

practise  coming  into  and  going  out  of  a  room  until 
he  was  satisfied  with  my  ease  and  grace. 

"Do  you  see,  tna  petite  Sophie^'"  he  said,  "a 
woman,  when  she  walks  well,  is  a  goddess.  Walk 
always  as  if  on  clouds,  lightly  and  loftily.  Or 
imagine  that  you  are  skimming  over  fields  of 
wheat,  and  that  not  an  ear  must  bend  beneath 
your  tread." 


CHAPTER  IX 

LOCH-AR-BRUGG 

AND  now  I  must  tell  of  Loch-ar-Brugg,  the 
center  of  my  long  life  and  the  spot  dearest 
to  me  upon  earth.  It  was  situated  amidst  the 
beautiful,  wild,  heathery  country  that  stretched 
inland  from  Landemeau.  I  first  saw  it  one  day 
when  I  drove  over  from  Landemeau  with  my 
father,  and  my  chief  recollection  of  this  earliest 
visit  is  the  deep  shade  under  the  high  arch  of  the 
beech  avenue  and  the  aromatic  smell  of  black  cur- 
rants in  an  upper  room  where  we  were  taken  to 
see  the  liqueur  in  process  of  being  made.  I  was 
given  some  to  drink  in  a  tiny  glass,  and  I  never 
smell  or  taste  cassis  that  the  scent,  color,  warmth, 
and  sweetness  of  that  long-distant  day  does  not 
flash  upon  me.  The  liqueur  was  being  made  by 
the  farmer's  wife ;  for  part  of  the  house,  which,  as 
I  have  said,  papa  at  that  time  used  only  as  a  hunt- 

153 


154    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

ing-lodge,  was  inhabited  by  a  Belgian  farmer  and 
his  family.  They  were  all  seated  at  their  midday 
meal  when  we  arrived,  and  another  thing  I  remem- 
ber is  that  the  eldest  daughter,  a  singularly  beauti- 
ful young  creature,  with  sea-green  eyes  and  golden 
hair,  was  so  much  confused  at  seeing  us  that  she 
put  a  spoonful  of  the  custard  she  was  eating 
against  her  cheek  instead  of  into  her  mouth, 
greatly  to  my  delight  and  to  papa's. 

"Monsieur  must  excuse  her,"  said  the  mother; 
"she  is  very  timid."  On  which  my  father  replied 
with  some  compliment  which  made  all  the  family 
smile.  I  see  them  all  smiling  and  happy,  yet  it 
must  have  been  soon  after  that  a  tragedy  befell 
them.  News  was  brought  to  my  father  that  the 
farmer  had  hanged  himself.  The  poor  man's  rent 
was  badly  in  arrears,  but  when  he  had  last  spoken 
to  my  father  about  it,  the  latter,  as  was  always 
his  wont  in  such  circumstances,  told  him  not  to 
torment  himself  and  that  he  could  pay  when  he 
liked.  Maman  always  suspected  that  my  father's 
agent  had  threatened  the  poor  fellow  and  that  he 
had  done   away   with  himself   in   an   access   of 


On  the  road  to  Loch-ar-Brugg 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  157 

despondency.  Papa,  overcome  with  grief,  hast- 
ened to  Loch-ar-Brugg  and  remained  there  for  a 
week  with  the  mourning  family.  He  gave  them 
money  to  return  to  Belgium,  and  the  beautiful 
young  daughter  became,  we  heard,  a  very  skilful 
lace-maker. 

I  was  too  young  for  this  lugubrious  event  to 
cast  a  shadow  on  my  dear  Loch-ar-Brugg,  but  for 
many  years  maman  disliked  the  place.  We  still 
lived  at  Quimper  or  Landerneau,  using  Loch-ar- 
Brugg  as  a  mere  country  resort ;  but  by  degrees  the 
ugly  walls,  nine  feet  high,  that  shut  in  the  house 
from  the  gardens  and  shut  out  the  view  were 
pulled  down,  lawns  were  thrown  into  one  another, 
great  clumps  of  blue  hydrangeas  were  planted  all 
down  the  avenue,  on  each  side,  between  each 
beech-tree,  and  the  house,  if  not  beautiful,  was 
made  comfortable  and  convenient.  It  was  when 
we  were  really  established  at  Loch-ar-Brugg  that 
maman  began  to  take  the  finances  of  the  household 
into  her  capable  hands.  She  reproached  my 
father  with  his  lack  of  ambition,  and  asked  him 
frequently  why  he  did  not  find  an  occupation,  to 


158    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

which  he  always  replied,  "Ma  ckere,  I  have  pre- 
cisely the  occupations  I  care  for."  Maman  wrote 
secretly  to  bon  papa  in  Paris  and  begged  him  to 
find  a  post  for  her  husband  there,  and  an  excellent 
one  was  found  at  the  treasury.  But  when  the  let- 
ter came,  and  maman,  full  of  joy,  displayed  it  to 
him,  papa  cheerfully,  but  firmly,  refused  to  con- 
sider for  a  moment  any  such  change  in  his  way  of 
life.  As  a  country  gentleman  he  had  lived  and  as 
a  country  gentleman  he  intended  to  go  on  living, 
and  so  indeed  he  continued  to  the  end  of  his  long 
life.  I  don't  imagine  that  he  made  any  difficulties 
as  to  maman  taking  over  the  financial  manage- 
ment. He  was  quite  incapable  of  saying  no  to  a 
farmer  who  asked  to  have  his  rent  run  on  unpaid, 
and  realized,  no  doubt,  that  his  methods  would 
soon  bring  his  family  to  ruin.  So  it  was  tnaman 
who  received  and  paid  out  all  the  money.  I  see 
her  now,  sitting  at  the  end  of  the  long  table  in  the 
kitchen,  between  two  tall  tallow  candles,  the  peas- 
ants kneeling  on  the  floor  about  her  while  she 
assessed  their  indebtedness  and  received  their  pay- 
ments.    She  was  never  unkind,  but  always  strict. 


'.-'  -  'V, 


^'XZ 


Ck  ) 


^•y, 


'My  father,  meeting  a  disconsolate 
peasant,  .  .  .  would  surreptitiously 
slide  the  needful  sum  into  his  hand" 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  161 

and  I  was  more  than  once  the  sympathetic  witness 
of  an  incident  that  would  greatly  have  incensed 
her.  My  father,  meeting  a  disconsolate  peasant 
going  to  an  interview  with  la  Maitresse,  would 
surreptitiously  slide  the  needful  sum  into  his 
hand!  What  would  maman  have  said  had  she 
known  that  the  money  so  brightly  and  briskly  paid 
to  her  had  just  come  out  of  her  husband's  pocket ! 
I  was  always  a  great  deal  with  papa  at  Loch- 
ar-Brugg.  At  first  I  used  to  walk  with  him, — 
when  he  did  not  take  me  on  his  horse, — trotting 
along  beside  him,  my  hand  in  his.  Later  on, 
when  Xante  Rose  had  given  me  a  dear  little  pony, 
I  rode  with  him,  and  he  had  secretly  made  for  me, 
knowing  that  tnaman  would  not  approve,  a  very 
astonishing  riding-costume.  It  had  long,  tightly 
fitting  trousers,  a  short  little  jacket,  like  an  Eton 
jacket,  with  a  red-velvet  collar, — red  was  my 
father's  racing  color, — and  on  my  long  golden 
curls  a  high  silk  hat.  Maman  burst  out  laughing 
when  she  saw  me  thus  attired  and  was  too  much 
amused  to  be  displeased.  She  herself  rode  a  great 
deal  at  this  time,  but  it  was  to  hunting-  and  shoot- 


i62    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

ing-parties,  from  which  she  would  return  with  her 
"bag"  hanging  from  a  sort  of  little  pole  fixed  to 
her  saddle;  and  I  remember  that  one  day  she 
brought  a  strange  beast  that  none  of  us  ever  saw  in 
Brittany  again,  a  species  of  armadillo  {tatou)  that 
her  horse  had  trodden  upon  and  killed. 

It  was  at  Loch-ar-Brugg,  on  one  of  those  early 
walks  with  papa,  that  my  first  vivid  recollection 
of  a  landscape  seen  as  a  beautiful  picture  comes  to 
me.  We  had  entered  a  deep  lane  where  gnarled 
old  trees  interlaced  their  fingers  overhead  and 
looked,  with  their  twisted  trunks,  like  crouching 
men  or  beasts;  and  as  we  advanced,  it  became  so 
dark  and  mysterious  that  I  was  very  much  fright- 
ened and  hung  to  papa's  hand,  begging  to  be  taken 
out.  He  pointed  then  before  us,  and  far,  far 
away  I  saw  a  tiny  spot  of  light.  "Don't  be  fright- 
ened, Sophie,"  he  said;  "we  are  going  toward  the 
sunlight."  So  I  kept  my  eyes  fixed  on  the  widen- 
ing spot,  holding  papa's  hand  very  tightly  in  the 
haunted  darkness ;  and  when  we  suddenly  emerged, 
we  were  on  the  brink  of  a  great  gorge,  and  beyond 
were  mountains,   and  below  us   lay  a  tranquil, 


o 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  165 

silver  lake.  I  have  never  forgotten  the  strange, 
visionary  impression,  as  of  a  beauty  evoked  from 
the  darkness.  Papa  told  me  the  story  of  the  lake; 
it  was  called  "le  lac  des  Korrigans."  The  Ker- 
rigans are  Breton  fairies — fairies,  I  think,  more 
melancholy  than  those  of  other  lands,  and  with 
something  sinister  and  macabre  in  their  supernat- 
ural activities.  They  danced  upon  the  turf,  it  is 
true,  in  fairy-rings,  but  also,  at  night,  they  would 
unwind  the  linen  from  the  dead  in  the  church- 
yards and  wash  it  in  this  lake.  I  felt  the  same 
fear  and  wonder  on  hearing  this  story  that  all  my 
descendants  have  shown  when  they,  in  their  turn, 
have  come  to  hear  it,  and  my  little  granddaughter, 
in  passing  near  the  lake  with  me,  has  often  said, 
shrinking  against  me,  "Je  ne  veux  pas  voir  les 
blanchisseuses,  Grand'mere." 

Unlike  the  marquis,  who  filled  my  mind,  or 
tried  to  fill  it,  with  the  facts  of  nature  and  history, 
papa,  on  our  walks,  told  me  all  these  old  legends, 
not  as  if  he  believed  them,  it  is  true,  but  as  if  they 
were  stories  quite  as  important  in  their  way  as  the 
crusades;  and  perhaps  he  was  right. 


i66    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

Sometimes,  when  we  were  walking  or  riding,  we 
met  convicts  who  had  escaped  from  the  great 
prison  at  Brest.  I  was  strictly  forbidden  ever  to 
go  outside  the  gates  alone;  but  once,  at  evening,  I 
slipped  out  and  ran  along  the  road  to  meet  papa, 
who,  I  knew,  was  coming  from  Landerneau  on 
foot.  He  was  very  much  perturbed  when  he  saw 
me  emerge  before  him  in  the  dusk,  and  drew  me 
sharply  to  his  side,  and  I  then  noticed  that  two 
men  were  following  him.  Presently  they  joined 
us  and  asked  papa,  very  roughly,  for  the  time. 

"It  is  nine,  I  think,"  said  my  father,  eyeing 
them  very  attentively. 

"You  think?  Haven't  you  a  watch,  then?' 
said  one  of  them. 

I  suppose  they  imagined  that  the  rifle  papa  car- 
ried over  his  shoulder  was  unloaded ;  but  unsling- 
ing  it  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  he  said  sternly: 

"Walk  ahead.  If  you  turn  or  stop,  I  shoot." 
They  obeyed  at  once,  and  as  they  went  along  we 
heard  a  queer  clink  come  from  their  ankles. 

"Escaped  convicts,"  said  papa  in  a  low  voice. 
"Poor  devils !     And  you  see,  Sophie,  how  danger- 


T 


■vX^<^ 


"  Papa  took  out  his  hunting- 
flask  and  made  him  drink" 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  169 

ous  it  is  for  little  girls  to  wander  on  the  roads  at 
night." 

On  another  occasion  we  found  a  wretched,  ex- 
hausted man  lying  by  the  roadside,  and  papa 
stopped  and  asked  him  what  was  the  matter.  He 
must  have  felt  the  kindness  of  the  face  and  voice, 
for  he  said : 

"I  am  an  escaped  convict,  monsieur.  For 
God's  sake  I  don't  betray  me.  I  am  dying  of  hun- 
ger." Papa  took  out  his  hunting-flask  and  made 
him  drink,  and  then,  when  we  saw  that  the  brandy 
had  given  him  strength,  he  put  some  money  into 
his  hand  and  said : 

"It  is  against  the  law  that  I  should  help  you, 
but  I  give  you  an  hour  before  I  raise  the  alarm. 
Go  in  that  direction,  and  God  be  with  you  I" 

The  church-bells  were  rung  everywhere,  answer- 
ing one  another  from  village  to  village  when  a 
convict  was  known  to  be  at  large;  but  on  this  occa- 
sion I  know  that  my  father  did  not  fulfil  his  duty, 
the  poor  creature's  piteous  face  had  too  much 
touched  him.  Once,  too,  when  we  children  were 
walking   with   Jeannie    along   the   highroad   we 


lyo     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

caught  sight  of  a  beggar-woman  sleeping  in  the 
ditch.  In  peering  over  cautiously  to  have  a  good 
look  at  her,  we  saw  huge  men's  boots  protruding 
from  her  petticoats,  and,  at  the  other  end,  a  black 
beard,  and  we  then  made  off  as  fast  as  our  legs 
would  carry  us,  realizing  that  the  beggar-woman 
was  a  convict  in  disguise.  At  an  inn  not  far  from 
Loch-ar-Brugg  there  was  a  woman  of  bad  charac- 
ter who  sold  these  disguises  to  the  escaped  con- 
victs. 

Papa  and  my  little  brother  and  sister  (Mara- 
quita  was  not  then  born)  were  not  my  only  com- 
panions at  Loch-ar-Brugg.  The  property  of  Ker- 
Azel  adjoined  ours,  and  I  saw  all  my  Laisieu  cou- 
sins continually,  dear,  gentle  France,  domineering 
Jules,  and  the  rest.  There  were  nine  of  them.  It 
was  Jules  who  told  us  one  day  that  he  had  been 
thinking  over  the  future  of  France  (the  country, 
not  his  brother),  and  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  we  should  all  soon  suffer  from  a  terrible  fam- 
ine. Famines  had  come  before  this,  said  Jules,  so 
why  not  again ^  It  was  only  wise  to  be  prepared 
for  them;  and  what  he  suggested  was  that  we 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  171 

should  all  accustom  ourselves  to  eat  grass  and 
clover,  as  the  cattle  did.  If  it  nourished  cows,  it 
would  nourish  us.  All  that  was  needed  was  a  lit- 
tle good-will  in  order  that  we  should  become  accus- 
tomed to  the  new  diet.  Jules  was  sincerely  con- 
vinced of  the  truth  of  what  he  said;  but  he  was  a 
tyrannous  boy,  and  threatened  us  with  beatings  if 
we  breathed  a  word  of  his  plan  to  our  parents. 
We  were  to  feign  at  meals  that  we  were  not  hun- 
gry, and  to  say  that  we  had  eaten  before  coming 
to  the  table.  I  well  remember  the  first  time  that 
we  poor  little  creatures  knelt  down  on  all  fours 
in  a  secluded  meadow  and  began  to  bite  and 
munch  the  grass.  We  complained  at  once  that  we 
did  not  like  it  at  all,  and  Jules,  as  a  concession  to 
our  weakness,  said  that  we  might  begin  with 
clover,  since  it  was  sweeter.  For  some  time  we 
submitted  to  the  ordeal,  getting  thinner  and  thin- 
ner and  paler,  growing  accustomed,  it  is  true,  to 
our  tasteless  diet  and  never  daring  to  confess  our 
predicament;  we  were  really  afraid  of  the  famine 
as  well  as  of  Jules.  At  last  our  parents,  seri- 
ously alarmed,  consulted  the  good  old  doctor,  as 


172     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

nothing  could  be  got  from  us  but  stout  denials  of 
hunger.  He  took  me  home  with  him,  for  I  was 
his  special  pet,  and  talked  gravely  and  gently  to 
me,  reminding  me  that  I  was  now  eight  years  old 
and  of  the  age  of  reason,  going  to  confession  and 
capable  of  sin.  It  was  a  sin  to  tell  lies,  and  if  I 
would  tell  him  the  truth,  he  would  never  betray 
my  confidence.  Thus  adjured,  I  began  to  cry, 
and  confessed  that  we  had  all  been  eating  nothing 
but  grass  and  clover.  The  doctor  petted  and  con- 
soled me,  told  me  that  it  was  all  folly  on  the  part 
of  Jules,  and  that  he  would  set  it  right  without 
any  one  knowing  that  I  had  told  him.  He  kept 
his  promise  to  me.  It  was  as  if  by  chance  he 
found  us  all  in  our  meadow  next  day,  on  all  fours, 
munching  away.  Jules  sprang  up,  sulky  and  ob- 
stinate. 

"Yes;  we  are  eating  grass  and  clover/'  he  said, 
"and  we  are  quite  accustomed  to  it  now  and  like  it 
very  much,  and  we  shall  be  better  off  than  the  rest 
of  you  when  the  famine  comes." 

The  doctor  burst  out  laughing,  and  his  laugh- 
ter broke  the  spell  Jules  had  cast  upon  us.     He 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  173 

told  us  that  not  only  was  there  no  probability  of  a 
famine,  no  possibility  even,  France  being  a  coun- 
try rich  in  food,  but  that  even  were  there  to  be  a 
famine,  we  should  certainly  all  be  dead  before  it 
came  if  we  went  on  eating  as  the  cattle  did,  since 
we  were  not  accommodated  with  the  same  diges- 
tive apparatus  as  they.  He  described  to  us  this 
apparatus  and  our  own,  and  at  last  even  Jules, 
who  was  as  thin  and  as  weary  as  the  rest  of  us,  was 
convinced,  and  glad  to  be  convinced.  It  was  not 
till  many  years  afterward  that  we  told  our  parents 
the  story. 

One  day  we  children  were  all  in  a  deep  lane — 
perhaps  the  same  that  had  frightened  me  years  be- 
fore— when,  at  a  turning,  the  most  inconceivable 
monster  towered  above  us  in  the  gloom.  We  rec- 
ognized it  in  a  moment  as  a  camel  (a  camel  in 
Brittany.'),  and  with  it  came  a  band  of  Gipsies, 
with  dark  skins,  flashing  teeth,  bright  handker- 
chiefs, and  ear-rings.  Our  alarm  was  not  dimin- 
ished when  we  saw  that  they  led,  as  well  as  the 
camel,  two  thin  performing  bears.  But  as  we 
emerged  into  the  light  with  the  chattering,  fawn- 


174    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

ing  crowd,  alarm  gave  way  to  joyous  excitement. 
The  camel  and  the  bears  were  under  perfect  con- 
trol, and  the  Gipsies  were  not  going  to  hurt  us. 
They  asked  if  they  might  make  the  bears  dance 
for  us,  and  we  ran  to  show  them  the  way  to  Loch- 
ar-Brugg.  Maman^  in  her  broad  garden  hat,  was 
walking  in  the  beech-avenue,  and  came  at  once  to 
forbid  the  Gipsies  to  enter,  as  they  were  preparing 
to  do;  but  as  we  supplicated  that  we  should  be 
allowed  to  see  the  bears  dance,  she  consented  to 
allow  the  performance  to  take  place  in  the  high- 
road before  the  grille.  We  sat  about  on  the  grass; 
the  camel  towered  against  the  sky,  gaunt,  tawny, 
and  melancholy;  and  the  bears,  armed  with 
wooden  staffs,  went  through  their  clumsy,  reluc- 
tant tricks.  Maman^  from  within  the  grille.,  sur- 
veyed the  entertainment  with  great  disfavor,  and 
it  lost  its  charm  for  us  when  we  heard  her  say: 
"How  wretchedly  thin  and  miserable  the  poor 
creatures  look !  They  must  be  dying  of  hunger." 
We  then  became  very  sorry  for  the  bears,  too,  and 
glad  to  have  them  left  in  peace,  and  while  we  dis- 
tributed sous  to  the  Gipsies,  niaman  went  to  the 


v^ 


i-^** 


'A  woman  of  bad  character,  who  sold 
these  disguises  to  escaped  convicts" 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  177 

house  and  returned  with  a  basket  of  broken  bread 
and  meat,  which  she  gave  to  the  famished  beasts. 
How  they  snatched  and  devoured  it,  and  how 
plainly  I  see  maman  standing  there,  the  deep  green 
vault  of  the  avenue  behind  her,  the  clumps  of  blue 
hydrangeas,  her  light  dress,  her  wide-brimmed  gar- 
den hat,  and  her  severe,  solicitous  blue  eyes  as  she 
held  out  the  bread  to  the  hungry  bears  I 

A  great  character  at  Loch-ar-Brugg  was  the 
cure.  It  was  he  who  had  baptized  me,  for  I  was 
baptized  not  at  Quimper,  but  in  the  little  church 
of  St.  Eloi  that  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  Loch-ar- 
Brugg  woods  and  had  been  in  the  Kerouguet  fam- 
ily for  generations.  During  my  earliest  years 
there  he  was  our  chaplain,  inhabiting  one  of  the 
pavilions  in  the  garden  with  his  old  servant;  later 
on  he  was  given  the  living  of  Plougastel,  some 
miles  away,  and  my  father  had  to  persuade  him  to 
accept  it,  for  he  was  very  averse  to  leaving  Loch- 
ar-Brugg  and  our  family.  Still,  even  at  Plou- 
gastel we  saw  him  constantly ;  he  drove  over  nearly 
every  day  in  his  little  pony-trap,  and  officiated 
every  Sunday  at  the  seven  o'clock  mass  at  St.  Eloi. 


178    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

What  a  dear,  honest  fellow  he  was,  and  what 
startling  sermons  I  have  heard  him  preach  I  Once 
he  informed  his  congregation  that  they  would  all 
be  damned  like  Jean- Jacques  Rousseau  and  Fene- 
lonl  This  threat,  pronounced  in  Breton,  was  es- 
pecially impressive,  and  how  he  came  by  the  two 
ill-assorted  names  I  cannot  imagine,  for  he  was 
nearly  as  ignorant  of  books  as  his  flock.  He  was 
devoted  to  my  father  body  and  soul,  being  the  son 
of  one  of  his  farmers.  They  were  great  comrades. 
Whenever  my  father  had  had  a  good  day's  shoot- 
ing he  would  go  to  the  pivcillon  and  cry:  "Come 
to  dinner  I  There  are  woodcocks."  And  the 
cure  never  lailed  to  come.  I  see  him  now,  with 
his  rustic,  rugged  face,  weather-tanned,  gay,  and 
austere.  One  of  my  first  memories  is  of  the  small, 
square  neck  ornament  {rabat)  that  the  clergy 
wear, — a  bavette  we  children  called  them, — 
stitched  round  with  white  beads.  I  longed  for 
these  beads,  and  when  he  took  me  on  his  knee  I 
always  fixed  my  eyes  upon  them.  Unattainable 
indeed  they  seemed,  but  one  day,  noticing  the  in- 
tentness  of  my  gaze,  he  questioned  me,  and  I  was 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  179 

able  to  express  my  longing,  "But  you  shall  have 
the  beads !"  he  cried,  touched  and  delighted.  "I 
have  two  rahats^  and  one  is  old  and  past  wearing. 
Nothing  is  simpler  than  to  cut  off  the  beads  for 
you,  my  little  Sophie," 

His  performance  was  even  better  than  his  prom- 
ise, for  he  brought  me  a  bagful  of  the  beads,  col- 
lected from  among  his  cure  friends,  and  for  days  I 
was  blissfully  occupied  in  making  chains,  rings, 
and  necklaces.  Some  of  these  ornaments  sur- 
vived for  many  years. 

The  cure  was  not  at  all  happy  in  the  presence 
of  fine  people.  "Je  me  sauveP'  he  would  exclaim 
if  such  appeared,  and  he  would  make  off  to  the 
garden,  where  he  was  altogether  at  home,  true  son 
of  the  soil  that  he  was.  Here  he  would  gird  up 
his  soutane  over  his  homespun  knee-breeches,  open 
his  coarse  peasant's  shirt  on  his  bare  chest,  and 
prune  and  dig  and  plant;  and  when  he  took  a  task 
in  hand  it  went  quickly.  One  of  my  delights  was 
when  he  put  me  into  the  wheelbarrow  and  trun- 
dled me  off  to  Ker-Eliane  to  dig  up  ferns  for 
maman's  garden. 


i8o    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

He,  too,  told  me  many  legends.  The  one  of 
St.  Eloi  especially  interested  me.  St.  Eloi  was 
the  son  of  a  blacksmith  and  helped  his  father  at 
the  forge  in  the  tiny  hamlet  called  after  him. 
One  day  as  they  were  working,  a  little  child  came 
riding  up,  mounted  on  a  horse  so  gigantic  that  four 
men  could  not  have  held  him.  "Will  you  shoe 
my  horse,  good  friends'?"  said  the  child, — who  of 
course  was  VEnfant  Jesus, — very  politely.  "His 
shoe  is  loose,  and  his  hoof  will  be  hurt."  The 
father  blacksmith  looked  with  astonishment  and 
indignation  at  the  horse,  and  said  that  he  could 
not  think  of  shoeing  an  animal  of  such  a  size;  but 
the  son,  St.  Eloi,  said  at  once  that  he  would  do  his 
best.  So  VEnfant  Jesus  slid  down,  and  took  a 
seat  on  the  talus  in  front  of  the  smithy,  and  St. 
Eloi  at  once  neatly  unscrewed  the  four  legs  of  the 
horse  and  laid  them  down  beside  the  enormous 
body.  At  this  point  in  the  story  I  always  cried 
out: 

"But,  Monsieur  le  Cure,  did  it  not  hurt  the  poor 
horse  to  have  its  legs  unscrewed^" 

And  the  cure,  smiling  calmly,  would  reply: 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  181 

"Not  in  the  least.  You  see,  this  was  a  miracle, 
my  little  Sophie." 

So  St.  Eloi  was  able  to  deal  with  the  great  hoofs 
separately,  and  when  all  was  neatly  done,  the  legs 
were  screwed  on  again;  and  the  child  remounted, 
and  said  to  St.  Eloi's  father  before  he  rode  away : 

"You  are  a  little  soured  with  age,  my  friend. 
Your  son  here  is  very  wise.  Listen  to  him  and 
take  his  advice  in  everything,  for  it  will  be  good." 

It  was  no  doubt  on  account  of  this  legend  that 
all  the  horses  through  all  the  country  far  and  near 
were  brought  to  the  church  of  St.  Eloi  once  a  year 
to  be  blessed  by  the  cure.  This  ceremony  was 
called  le  Bapteme  des  Chevaux.  The  horses, 
from  plow-horses  to  carriage-horses  and  hunters, 
were  brought  and  ranged  round  the  church  in 
groups  of  fours  and  sixes.  At  the  widely  opened 
western  door  the  cure  stood,  holding  the  goupillon, 
or  holy-water  sprinkler,  and  the  horses  were  slowly 
led  round  the  church,  row  after  row,  seven  times, 
and  each  time  that  they  passed  before  him  the  cure 
sprinkled  them  with  holy  water.  After  this  in- 
itial blessing  the  cure  took  up  his  stand  within  be- 


i82     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

side  the  christening-font,  and  the  horses  were  led 
into  the  church, — I  so  well  remember  the  dull  thud 
and  trampling  of  their  feet  upon  the  earthen  floor, 
— and  the  cure,  with  holy  water  from  the  font, 
made  the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  each  large,  inno- 
cent forehead.  Finally  the  tail  of  each  horse  was 
carefully  cut  off,  and  all  the  tails  hung  up  in  the 
church  together,  to  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the 
church  at  the  end  of  the  year,  before  le  Bapteme 
des  Chevaux  took  place  again.  This  touching 
ceremony  still  survives,  but  the  horses  are  only  led 
round  the  church  and  blessed,  not  brought  inside. 

The  Church  of  St.  Eloi  was  very  ancient,  and 
adorned  with  strange  old  statues  of  clumsily 
carved  stone  painted  in  garish  colors.  One  was  of 
a  Christ  waiting  for  the  cross.  His  hands  tied  be- 
fore Him.  It  was  a  hideous  figure,  the  feet  and 
hands  huge  and  distorted,  the  eyes  staring  like 
those  of  a  doll;  yet  it  had  an  impressive  look  of 
suffering.  There  were  no  benches  in  the  church 
except  for  our  family,  near  the  choir.  The  peas- 
ants, the  men  on  one  side,  the  women  on  the  other, 
knelt  on  the  bare  earth  during  the  office.     They 


/ 


'A  great  character  at  Loch- 
ar-Brugg  was  the  cur6" 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  185 

had  used,  always,  when  they  entered  the  church, 
to  pass  round  before  les  maitres^  bowing  before 
them;  but  even  my  mother  objected  to  this,  and 
the  cure  was  told  to  give  out  from  the  pulpit  that 
les  maitres  were  no  longer  to  be  bowed  to  in 
church,  where  there  was  only  one  master.  Ma- 
man^  however,  did  not  at  all  like  it  that  my 
father  should  insist  on  us  children  kneeling  with 
the  peasants,  and  it  was  the  one  subject  on  which 
I  remember  a  difference  of  opinion  between  my 
grandfather  Rosval  and  papa.  But  the  latter  was 
firm,  and  Ernest  on  the  side  of  the  men,  Eliane 
and  I  on  the  side  of  the  women,  we  knelt  through 
mass.  This  was  no  hardship  to  us,  for  the  kind 
peasants  spread  their  skirts  for  our  little  knees  and 
regaled  us  all  through  the  service  with  crepes. 

Crepes  seem  to  be  present  in  nearly  all  my 
Breton  memories.  The  peasants  made  them  for 
us  when  we  went  to  visit  them  in  their  cottages, 
and  it  would  have  hurt  their  feelings  deeply  had 
we  refused  them.  We  children  delighted  in  these 
visits  not  only  on  account  of  the  crepes.,  but  on  ac- 
count of  the  picturesque  interest  of  these  peasant 


i86    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

interiors.  The  one  living-room  had  an  earthen 
floor  and  a  huge  chimney-place  of  stone,  often 
quaintly  carved,  and  so  large  that  chairs  could  be 
set  within  it  about  the  blazing  logs.  The  room 
was  paneled,  as  it  were,  with  beds  that  looked, 
when  their  sliding  wooden  doors  were  closed,  like 
tall  wardrobes  ranged  along  the  walls.  They 
were  usually  of  dark  old  wood  and  often  beauti- 
fully carved.  A  narrow  space  between  the  tops  of 
these  beds  and  the  ceiling  allowed  some  air  (but 
what  air  I)  to  reach  the  sleepers,  and,  within,  the 
straw  was  piled  high,  and  the  mattress  and  feather 
bed  were  laid  upon  it.  It  was  quite  customary  for 
father,  mother,  and  three  or  four  children  to  sleep 
in  one  bed,  several  generations  often  occupying  a 
room,  as  well  as  the  servants,  who  were  of  the  same 
class  as  their  masters.  The  beds  were  climbed 
into  by  means  of  a  carved  chest  that  stood  beside 
them.  These  were  called  huches^  and  contained 
the  heirloom  costumes,  a  store  of  bread,  and  the 
Sunday  shoes  I  Potatoes  were  kept  under  the  bed. 
In  the  window  stood  the  table  where  the  family 
and  servants  all  ate  together,  and  above  it  hung. 


i'^.v«. 


"All  the  Breton  women  smoked  " 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  189 

suspended  by  a  pulley  and  string  from  the  ceiling, 
a  curious  contrivance  for  holding  spoons.  It  was 
a  sort  of  wooden  disk,  and  the  spoons  were  held 
in  notches  cut  round  the  edge ;  it  was  lowered  when 
needed,  and  each  person  took  a  spoon.  A  great 
earthenware  bowl  of  creamy  milk  stood  in  the 
center  of  the  table,  and  with  each  mouthful  of  por- 
ridge, or  fare^  the  spoons  were  dipped,  in  commun- 
ity, into  the  milk.  Fare  was  a  sort  of  thick  por- 
ridge made  of  maize,  allowed  to  cool  in  a  large 
round  cake,  and  cut  in  slices  when  cold.  It  was 
one  of  the  peasants'  staple  dishes,  and  another  was 
the  porridge  made  of  oatmeal,  rye,  or  buckwheat, 
served  hot,  with  a  lump  of  butter.  For  breakfast 
they  all  drank  cafe  au  lait,  strange  coffee  boiled 
with  the  milk;  fortunately  milk  and  butter  were 
plentiful.  Of  the  hygienic  habits  of  the  peasants 
at  this  time  the  less  said  the  better;  a  very  minor 
detail  was  that  the  long  hair  of  the  men  and  the 
closely  coiffed  tresses  of  the  women  swarmed  with 
vermin,  and  after  every  visit  we  paid,  our  heads 
were  always  carefully  examined.  One  peasant, 
I  remember,  a  good  fellow,  Paul  Simur  by  name, 


190    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

of  whom  my  father  was  specially  fond,  was  so 
dirty  and  unwashed  that  a  sort  of  mask  of  dirt  had 
formed  upon  his  features.  One  day,  at  a  hunting- 
party,  papa  called  to  Paul  to  come  and  sit  beside 
him,  and  the  other  huntsmen,  with  singular  bad 
taste,  began  to  make  fun  of  poor  Paul,  who  sat 
much  abashed,  with  hanging  head.  Papa  affec- 
tionately laid  an  arm  about  his  neck  and  defended 
him,  until  his  friends  finally  cried  out  that  they 
wagered  he  would  not  kiss  him.  At  this,  although 
he  confessed  afterward  to  the  most  intense  repug- 
nance, he  at  once  kissed  Paul  heartily.  Poor  Paul 
was  quite  overcome.  He  came  to  my  father  after- 
ward with  tears  in  his  eyes  and  said,  standing  be- 
fore him  and  gazing  at  him : 

"Oh,  mon  maitre,  que  je  VaimeV 

"And  why  don't  you  ever  wash  your  face, 
Paul?"  papa  asked  him  then,  and  Paul  explained 
that  he  had  never  been  taught  to  wash  and  was 
afraid  it  would  seriously  hurt  him  to  begin.  Papa 
undertook  to  teach  him.  He  got  soap  and  soda 
and  hot  water  and  lathered  Paul,  gently  and 
firmly,  until  at  last  his  very  agreeable  features 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  193 

were  disinterred.  Paul  was  perfectly  delighted, 
and  his  face  shone  with  cleanliness  ever  after. 

A  special  friend  of  mine  among  the  peasants 
was  dear  old  Keransiflan,  the  lodge-keeper.  I 
was  fond  of  joining  him  while  he  tended  the  road 
in  front  of  the  lodge-gates  and  sitting  on  his  wheel- 
barrow with  him  to  talk  to  him  while  he  ate  his 
midday  meal.  This  consisted  of  a  huge  slice  of 
black  bread  thickly  spread  with  butter,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  no  bread  and  butter  had  ever 
looked  so  good. 

One  day  he  must  have  seen  how  much  I  longed 
for  it,  for  he  said,  holding  out  the  slice,  "Demoi- 
selle, en  veux-tu?''  I  did  not  need  to  be  asked 
twice,  and  can  still  see  the  great  semicircle  that  I 
bit  into  the  slice,  and  I  was  happily  munching 
when  maman  appeared  at  the  lodge-gates.  She 
was  very  much  displeased,  and  mainly  that  I 
should  be  devouring  poor  Keransiflan's  luncheon, 
and  she  rated  me  so  soundly  that  the  kind  old  man 
interceded  for  me,  saying,  ''Notre  mattress e,  c'est 
moi  qui  lui  Vai  donned  I  think  that  maman 
must  have  seen  that  it  gave  him  great  pleasure  to 


194    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

share  his  bread  with  me ;  at  all  events,  Keransiflan 
and  I,  sitting  on  our  wheelbarrow,  were  allowed  to 
go  on  eating  in  peace. 

But  the  peasants  were  a  hard,  harsh  race  and 
pitiless  in  their  dealings  toward  one  another. 
Their  treatment  of  their  old  people  was  terrible. 
If  an  old  mother,  past  work,  had  no  money,  she 
was  ruthlessly  turned  out  to  beg.  One  sometimes 
saw  such  an  old  woman  sitting  on  a  talus^  her  piti- 
ful bundle  of  rags  beside  her,  helpless  and  stupe- 
lied.  I  remember  a  story  that  was  told  me  by  one 
of  my  servants  about  such  an  old  woman  that  she 
had  known.  She  had  four  hundred  francs,  and 
was  cared  for  in  the  family  of  one  son  until  it  was 
spent,  when  she  was  turned  out.  Another  son 
more  kindly  took  her  in;  but  his  wife  was  a  hard 
woman,  and  though  she  finally  consented  to  accept 
the  useless  old  mother  into  the  household,  she 
grudged  every  sou  spent  upon  her.  Thus,  though 
the  only  two  joys  remaining  her  in  life  were  snuff 
and  coffee,  only  two  sous  a  week  was  allowed  her 
for  tobacco,  and  as  for  coffee,  she  was  given  never 
a  drop.     When  she  was  dying  she  told  the  servant 


LOCH-AR-BRUGG  195 

from  whom  I  had  the  story  that  what  made  her 
suffer  most  had  been  to  sit  by  in  the  morning  and 
smell  the  delicious  odor  of  the  coffee  as  the  others 
drank  it.  This  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  heart- 
piercing  story.  All  the  Breton  women  smoked,  by 
the  way,  and  pipes,  and  in  a  curious  fashion;  for 
the  bowl  was  turned  downward,  though  why,  I  do 
not  know. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE    PARDON    AT    FOLGOAT 

1WAS  taken  while  I  was  a  child  at  Loch-ar- 
Brugg  to  the  famous  Pardon  de  Folgoat^  to 
which  people  came  from  all  Brittany.  In  Folgoat 
was  the  summer  residence  of  Anne  de  Bretagne, 
and  in  the  vast  hall  of  the  chateau  she  had  held 
her  audiences.  The  chateau  is  now  the  presby- 
tery, and  is  opposite  the  church,  of  which  there  is 
a  legend.  A  poor  child,  Yann  Salacin,  who  was 
devoid  of  reason,  spent  hours  every  day  before  the 
altar  of  the  Virgin,  which  he  decorated  with  the 
wild  flowers  that  he  gathered  in  the  fields,  and 
wandered  in  the  forest,  swinging  on  the  branches 
of  the  trees,  always  singing  Ave  Maria,  the  only 
words  he  was  ever  heard  to  pronounce.  He 
begged  for  food  from  door  to  door  and  slept  in 
the  barns.     The  peasants  became  impatient  with 

him  and  began  to  whisper  that  he  was  possessed 

196 


THE  PARDON  AT  FOLGOAT      197 

of  an  evil  spirit,  and  at  last  they  drove  him  out 
of  the  village.  The  cure,  who  was  a  good  man, 
missed  him  in  the  church,  sought  vainly  for  him, 
and  at  last  heard  what  had  happened.  He  was 
filled  with  indignation,  and  told  the  peasants  that 
they  had  committed  a  crime.  Then  he  set  out  to 
look  for  poor  Yann,  and  found  him  at  last  in  a 
distant  forest,  dead  with  hunger.  He  brought  the 
body  back  to  Folgoat  and  buried  it  near  the 
church,  and  one  day  he  saw  that  a  tall  white  lily 
had  grown  up  from  the  grave;  when  he  opened 
the  grave  he  found  that  the  lily  sprang  from  the 
lips  of  the  little  innocent,  and  on  the  petals  of  the 
flower  one  could  read  in  letters  of  gold  Ave  Maria. 
This  legend  is  believed  in  all  Brittany,  and  a 
stained-glass  window  in  the  church  tells  the  story. 

Behind  the  church  is  the  Well  of  Love,  so  called 
because  not  a  day  passes  that  lovers  do  not  come  to 
test  their  fate  by  trying  to  float  pins  upon  the  sur- 
face of  the  water.  If  the  pins  float,  all  promises 
well,  and  they  go  away  happy.  Astute  ones 
slightly  grease  the  pins,  and  thus  aid  destiny. 

But  to  return  to  the  pardon.     I  remember  that 


198    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

on  this  occasion  an  old  cook  in  the  family  had  per- 
mission to  start  two  or  three  days  before  the  par- 
don^ so  that  she  might  go  all  the  way  on  her  knees, 
and  during  those  days  one  met  many  such  devout 
pilgrims  making  their  way  on  their  knees  along 
the  dusty  roads.  Some  of  them  came  from  far 
distances.  We  children  were  called  before  dawn 
on  the  August  morning,  and  it  was  a  sleepy,  half- 
bewildered  dressing  by  candle-light.  As  a  closed 
carriage  made  me  sick,  I  was  put  into  the  coupe 
with  papa  and  matnan.  Eliane,  Ernest,  their 
nurses,  and  all  the  other  servants,  followed  in  a 
sort  of  omnibus,  and  behind  them  came  all  the 
horses,  trotting  gaily  along  the  road  to  share  in 
the  blessings  of  this  great  day  of  the  Assumption 
of  the  Virgin.  The  horses  of  Brittany,  it  will  be 
conceded,  are  a  specially  favored  race.  Although 
I  was  in  the  coupe  and  had  all  the  freshness  of  the 
early  air  to  invigorate  me,  I  remember  of  the  jour- 
ney from  Loch-ar-Brugg  to  Folgoat  only  that  I 
was  deplorably  sick,  and  the  greatest  inconven- 
ience to  my  parents.  Fortunately,  I  was  restored 
the  moment  I  set  my  feet  upon  the  ground. 


^.^J>^ 


"Je  me  sauve,"  he  would  exclaim 


THE  PARDON  AT  FOLGOAT      201 

We  were  to  be  entertained  for  the  day  at  Fol- 
goat  by  the  cure,  and  to  lunch  with  him  and  with 
the  bishops  at  the  presbytery;  but  we  were  already 
ravenously  hungry,  so,  although  papa  and  maman 
must  continue  to  fast  until  after  taking  commun- 
ion at  the  early  service,  we  children  had  a  splendid 
picnic  breakfast  in  the  presbytery  garden,  and  a 
jellied  breast  of  lamb  is  my  first  recollection  of  the 
day  at  Folgoat!  Then  we  went  out  to  see  the 
great  festival.  Seventy-five  years  or  more  have 
passed  since  that  day,  and  it  still  lives  in  my  mind 
with  a  beauty  more  than  splendid,  a  divine  beauty. 
In  the  vast  plain,  under  the  vast,  blue  sky,  six  bish- 
ops, glittering  with  gold  and  precious  stones,  cele- 
brated mass  simultaneously  at  six  great  altars 
among  thousands  of  worshipers.  It  was  a  sea  of 
color  under  the  August  sun,  and  the  white  coiffes 
of  the  women  were  like  flocks  of  snowy  doves. 
There  was  an  early  mass,  and  the  high  mass  at 
eleven.  When  this  was  over,  we  assembled  at  the 
presbytery  to  lunch  with  the  bishops.  The  table 
was  laid  in  Anne  de  Bretagne's  council-chamber, 
its  stone  walls  covered  with  archaic  figures,  and  it 


202     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

must  have  been  a  picturesque  sight  to  see  the  bish- 
ops sitting  in  all  their  splendor  against  that  an- 
cient background;  but  what  I  most  remember  are 
the  stories  they  told  of  Louis  XI  and  his  misdeeds, 
which  seemed  to  me  more  interesting  and  more 
cruel  than  the  Arabian  Nights  and  Aii  Baba  and 
his  forty  thieves.  In  the  church  itself  was  shown 
a  superbly  carved  bench  where,  it  was  said,  while 
praying,  he  ordered  with  a  nod  the  death  of  a 
Breton  noble  who  had  refused  to  do  him  homage. 
When  we  went  into  the  church  after  lunch  to  see 
this  bench,  I  sat  down  on  it,  and  my  long  golden 
curls  were  caught  in  the  claws  of  the  interlaced 
monsters  on  the  back,  and  I  hurt  myself  so  much 
in  wrenching  myself  free  that  I  hated  still  more 
fiercely  the  wicked  king  who  condemned  men  to 
death  while  he  prayed.     O  the  horrid  monster ! 

Then  at  three  came  the  great  procession.  First 
went  the  six  bishops,  mitered  and  carrying  their 
croziers;  then  followed  the  children  of  the  no- 
blesse^ we  among  them,  all  in  white,  with  white 
wreaths  on  our  heads;  then  all  the  vast  multitude, 
twenty  or  thirty  abreast,  singing  canticles,  a  stu- 


THE  PARDON  AT  FOLGOAT      203 

pendous  sight  and  sound,  all  marching  round  the 
plain,  from  altar  to  altar,  under  the  burning  sun. 
I  remember  little  after  that.  The  Marquis  de 
Ploeuc  was  there,  his  hair  tied  in  the  catogan,  and 
wearing  his  black  silk  suit:  I  think  he  must  have 
lunched  with  us  at  the  cure's.  It  was  arranged 
that  he  and  his  two  eldest  daughters  were  to  drive 
back  to  Loch-ar-Brugg  with  maman  and  spend 
some  days  with  us,  and  so,  though  I  must  have 
been  very  tired,  I  was  to  ride  back  beside  papa  on 
my  pony,  which  had  been  duly  blessed.  It  was 
already  night  when  we  started,  and  what  a  won- 
derful ride  it  was  I  I  remember  no  fatigue.  I 
still  wore  my  white  dress,  and  maman  swathed  my 
head  and  shoulders  in  a  white  lace  shawl,  and  all 
the  way  back  to  Loch-ar-Brugg  papa  told  me 
stories  of  hunts,  of  fairies,  of  saints,  and  of  es- 
caped convicts.  Every  group  of  trees,  every  rock, 
every  turning  in  the  road,  had  its  legend  or  its  ad- 
venture. 


CHAPTER  XI 

BONNE    MAMAN's    DEATH 

WE  were  at  Quimper  when  bonne  ma?nan 
died.  She  had  been  failing  for  some 
time,  and  her  character,  until  then  so  gentle,  had 
altered.  Mere  trifles  disquieted  her,  and  she  be- 
came fretful,  alarmed,  and  even  impatient.  She 
seemed  so  little  in  her  big  bed,  and,  when  I  wanted 
to  climb  up  beside  her,  after  my  wont,  she  signed 
to  Jeannie  to  take  me  away  and  said  that  it  tired 
her  too  much  to  see  children  and  that  the  air  of  a 
sick-room  was  not  good  for  them.  "Tell  my 
daughter — tell  her.  They  must  not  come  I"  she 
repeated  several  times  in  a  strange,  shrill  voice. 
I  slid  down  from  the  bed,  I  remember,  abashed 
and  disconcerted,  and  while  I  longed  to  see  my 
dear  bonne  maman  as  I  had  known  her,  I  was 

afraid  of  this  changed  bonne  maman;  and  it  hurt 

204 


BONNE  MAMAN'S  DEATH        205 

me  more  for  her  than  for  myself  that  she  should 
be  so  changed. 

But  one  day  when  maman  was  in  the  room,  she 
caught  sight  of  me  hanging  about  furtively  in  the 
passage,  and  called  out  gently  to  me  to  go  away, 
that  bonne  maman  was  tired  and  was  going  to 
sleep.  Then  a  poor  little  voice,  no  longer  shrill, 
very  trembling,  came  from  the  bed,  saying:  "Let 
her  come,  Eliane.  It  will  not  hurt  me.  I  want 
to  see  her  for  a  moment." 

I  approached  the  bed,  walking  on  tiptoe;  the 
curtains  were  drawn  to  shade  bonne  maman  from 
the  sunlight,  and  I  softly  came  and  stood  within 
them.  O  my  poor  bonne  jnaman!  I  could 
hardly  recognize  her.  She  seemed  old — old  and 
shrunken,  and  her  eyes  no  longer  smiled.  She 
looked  at  me  so  fixedly  that  I  was  frightened,  and 
she  said  to  maman: 

"Lift  her  up  on  the  bed.  I  want  to  kiss  her." 
She  took  my  hand  then,  and  looked  at  my  little 
finger  as  she  always  used  to  do,  and  said:  "I 
see  that  you  have  been  very  good  with  your 
mother,  but  that  you  don't  obey  your  nurse.     You 


2o6    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

must  always  be  obedient.  You  understand  me, 
don't  you,  Sophie?     Do  you  say  your  prayers?" 

"Yes,  bonne  matnan^'''  I  answered. 

"Have  you  said  them  this  morning?" 

"No,  bonne  maman.'' 

"Say  them  now." 

I  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  and  said  the  follow- 
ing prayer,  which  I  repeated  morning  and  evening 
every  day,  and  with  slightly  altered  nomencla- 
ture, my  children  and  grandchildren  have  re- 
peated, as  I  did,  until  the  age  of  reason:  "Mon 
Dieu^  bless  me  and  bless  and  preserve  grand-pere^ 
bonne  maman^  maman^  papa^  my  sisters,  my 
brother,  Tiny"  [this  was  my  little  dog],  "Ghis- 
laine,  France,  Kerandraon,  all  my  family,  and 
make  me  very  good.  Amen."  When  I  had 
finished,  bonne  maman  drew  me  gently  to  her, 
pressed  me  in  her  arms,  and  kissed  me  on  my  eyes. 

After  this,  for  how  many  days  I  do  not  remem- 
ber, everything  became  very  still  in  the  house. 
The  servants  whispered  when  they  had  to  speak, 
and  the  older  people,  when  they  met  us,  told  us 
gently  to  go  into  the  garden  and  to  be  very  quiet. 


Paul 


BONNE  MAMAN'S  DEATH        209 

We  did  not  see  maman  or  papa  at  all.  My  tante 
de  Laisieu  was  with  us,  and  dear  France.  Bon 
papa  arrived  from  Paris.  One  morning  was  very 
sunny  and  beautiful,  and  as  I  played  with  Eliane 
in  the  garden  I  forgot  the  oppression  that  weighed 
upon  us  and  began  to  sing  to  her  a  Breton  song 
which  Jeannie  had  taught  me.  These  were  the 
words : 

Le  Roy  vient  demain  au  chateau, 
"Ecoute  moi  bien,  ma  Fleurette, 
Tu  regarderas  bien  son  aigrette !" 

**Je  regarderai,"  dit  Fleurette, 

"Pour  bien  reconnaitre  le  Roy! 
Mes  yeux  ne  verront  que  toi, 
Et  mon  cceur  n'aimera  que  toi." 

While  I  sang  I  looked  up  at  bonne  maman^s  win- 
dow, for  I  knew  how  fond  she  was  of  hearing  me. 
The  window  was  shut,  and  this  was  unusual; 
so  I  sang  the  louder,  that  she  should  hear  me,  of 
Fleurette  and  le  Roy.  Then  France  and  one  of 
the  servants  came  running  out  of  the  house,  and 
I  saw  that  both  had  been  crying,  and  France  put 
his  arm  about  me  while  the  servant  said,  "Made- 


210    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

moiselle  must  not  sing."  And  France  whispered: 
"You  will  wake  bonne  maman.  Go  into  the 
orchard,  dear  Sophie.  There  you  will  not  be 
heard."  In  the  evening  papa  came  for  us  in  the 
nursery,  and  I  saw  that  he,  too,  had  been  crying. 
I  had  never  before  seen  tears  in  his  dear  eyes. 
He  took  us  up  to  maman' s  room.  All  the  blinds 
were  drawn  down,  but  I  could  see  her  lying  on 
her  bed,  in  her  white  woolen  peignoir^  her  arms 
crossed  behind  her  head,  her  black  jet  rosary  lying 
along  the  sheet  beside  her.  We  kissed  her,  one 
after  the  other,  and  I  saw  the  great  tears  rolling 
down  her  cheeks. 

''Mafnan — is  bonne  maman  very  ill'?"  I  whis- 
pered. I  felt  that  something  terrible  had  hap- 
pened to  us  all. 

"My  little  girl,"  said  maman,  "your  poor  bonne 
maman  does  not  suffer  any  more.  She  is  very 
happy  now  with  the  angels  and  le  bon  Dieu" 
but  maman  was  sobbing  as  she  spoke. 

I  knew  death  only  as  it  had  come  to  one  of  my 
little  birds  that  lived  in  the  round  cage  hung  in  the 
nursery-window,  and  I  was  very  much  frightened 


We  children  had  a  splendid  picnic  breakfast 


BONNE  MAMAN'S  DEATH        213 

when  papa  said:  "I  am  going  to  take  Sophie  to 
your  mother's  room,  Eliane.  She  is  old  enough 
to  understand."  But  I  went  with  him  obediently, 
holding  his  hand.  Outside  bonne  maman's  door 
he  paused  and  stooped  to  kiss  me  and  said:  "I 
know  how  much  you  loved  your  bonne  maman^ 
Sophie,  and  I  want  you  to  say  good-by  to  her, 
for  you  will  never  see  her  again.  She  loved  you 
so  much,  my  little  darling,  and  you  shall  be  the 
last  one  to  kiss  her."  The  room  was  all  black, 
and  in  the  middle  stood  the  bed.  Beside  it,  on  a 
table,  a  little  chapelle  had  been  made  with  a  great 
silver  cross  and  candelabra  with  lighted  tapers. 
A  bunch  of  fresh  box  stood  in  a  goblet  of  holy 
water.  Bonne  maman  lay  with  her  arms  stretched 
out  before  her,  the  hands  clasped  on  her  black 
wooden  crucifix  with  a  silver  Christ  that  had  al- 
ways hung  upon  her  wall.  Her  hair  was  not 
dressed,  but  drawn  up  from  her  forehead  and  cov- 
ered with  a  mantilla  of  white  silk  Spanish  lace, 
which  fell  down  over  her  shoulders  on  each  side. 
I  stood  beside  her  holding  papa's  hand.  Her  pro- 
file was  sharply  cut  against  the  blackness,  and  I 


214    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

had  never  before  seen  how  beautiful  it  was.  Her 
eyes  were  closed,  and  she  smiled  tranquilly.  I 
felt  no  longer  any  fear;  but  when  papa  lifted  me 
in  his  arms  so  that  I  might  kiss  bonne  ?7iaman  and 
my  lips  touched  her  forehead,  a  great  shock  went 
through  me.  How  cold  her  forehead  was!  O 
my  poor  bonne  mamanl  Even  now,  after  all  the 
lusters  that  have  passed  over  me,  I  feel  the  cold  of 
that  last  kiss. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    JOURNEY    FROM    BRITTANY 

IT  was  not  long  after  bonne  mamari's  death 
that  we  left  Brittany  and  went  to  Paris  to  live 
with  hon  papa.  I  remember  every  detail  of  this 
my  first  long  journey.  The  day  began  with  a 
very  early  breakfast,  which  we  all  had  together 
in  the  dining-room  and  at  which  we  had  the  great 
treat  of  drinking  chocolate.  Then  came  the  com- 
plicated business  of  stowing  us  all  away  in  our 
capacious  traveling-carriage.  It  was  divided  into 
three  compartments.  First  came  what  was  called 
the  coupe^  with  windows  at  the  sides  and  a  large 
window  in  front  from  which  we  looked  out  past 
the  coachman's  red-stockinged  legs  and  along  the 
horses'  backs  to  where  the  postilion  jounced  mer- 
rily against  the  sky  in  a  red  Breton  costume  like 
the  coachman's,  his  long  hair  tied  behind  with 
black  ribbon,  a  red  jockey's  cap  on  his  head,  and 

215 


2i6    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

black  shoulder-knots  with  jet  aujuillettes.  After 
the  coupc^  and  communicating  with  it  by  a  tiny 
passage,  though  it  had  doors  of  its  own,  was  an- 
other compartment  for  maids,  nurses,  and  children, 
and  behind  that  another  and  larger  division  for  all 
the  other  servants.  On  the  top  were  seats  be- 
side the  coachman,  and  papa  spent  most  of  the  day 
up  there  smoking.  The  luggage,  carried  on  the 
top,  was  covered  by  a  great  leather  covering, 
buckled  down  all  over  it,  called  a  bache.  The 
horses  were  post-horses,  renewed  at  every  post. 
It  was  decided  that  I  was  to  go  in  the  coupe  with 
maman^  papa,  and  little  Maraquita,  as  I  should 
get  more  fresh  air  there.  I  wore,  I  remember,  a 
red  cashmere  dress  made  out  of  a  dress  of 
maman's.  The  material  had  been  brought  from 
India  and  was  bordered  with  a  design  of  palm- 
leaves.  Indeed,  this  red  cashmere  must  have  pro- 
vided me  with  a  succession  of  dresses,  for  I  re- 
member that  when  I  made  my  entree  at  the  ^acre 
Cceur  years  afterwards,  the  bishop,  visiting  the 
convent,  stopped,  smiling,  at  my  bench,  and  said, 
"Why,   this  is  a  little  Republican,   is  it  not*?" 


THE  JOURNEY  FROM  BRITTANY     217 

Eliane  and  I  both  wore  capulets  on  our  heads. 
These  were  squares  of  white  cloth  that  fell  to  the 
shoulders  and  that  folded  back  from  the  forehead 
and  fastened  under  the  chin  with  bands  of  black 
velvet,  a  Spanish  head-dress.  Our  cloaks  were 
the  full  cloaks,  gathered  finely  around  the  neck 
and  shoulders,  that  maman  had  made  for  us, 
copied  from  the  peasants'  cloaks,  of  foulard  for 
summer  and  wool  for  winter.  Little  Maraquita, 
who  spent  most  of  the  three  days"  journey  on  7na- 
man's  knees,  wore,  as  always  until  she  was  seven 
or  eight,  white  and  pale  blue,  the  Virgin's  colors, 
as  she  had  been  vouee  au  bleu  et  au  hlanc  after  a 
terrible  accident  that  had  befallen  her  in  infancy. 
She  had  fallen  into  the  fire  at  Landerneau,  and  her 
head  and  forehead  had  been  badly  burned,  and 
maman  had  thus  dedicated  her  to  the  Virgin  with 
prayers  that  she  might  not  be  disfigured — prayers 
that  were  more  than  answered,  for  Maraquita  be- 
came exquisitely  beautiful.  Papa,  I  may  add 
here,  had  many  friends  and  connections  in  Spain ; 
hence  my  little  sister's  name,  and  hence  our 
capulets. 


2i8    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

Eliane  and  Ernest  traveled  in  the  second  com- 
partment with  their  nurses,  Eliane  carrying  Tiny 
and  her  huge  doll,  and  Ernest,  unfortunately  for 
our  peace  of  mind,  a  drum  of  mine  that  I  had 
given  him  and  upon  which  he  beat  the  drum- 
sticks hour  after  hour.  Maman^  in  the  coupe, 
cried  out  at  intervals  that  it  was  intolerable  to 
hear  such  an  incessant  noise  and  that  the  child 
must  really,  now,  be  made  to  stop;  but  papa  al- 
ways mildly  soothed  her,  saying:  "Let  him  play. 
It  keeps  him  distracted;  he  would  probably  be 
crying  otherwise."  So  Ernest  continued  to  roll 
his  drum.  In  the  coupe  I  was  fully  occupied  in 
playing  at  horses.  Real  leather  reins  had  been 
fixed  at  each  side  of  the  front  window,  passing 
under  it  so  that,  looking  out  over  the  horses' 
haunches,  I  had  the  delightful  illusion,  as  I 
wielded  the  reins,  of  really  driving  them.  I  do 
not  remember  that  I  was  sick  at  all  on  the  first  day. 
The  country  was  mountainous,  and  at  every  steep 
hill  we  all  got  out  and  walked  down,  and  this  also, 
probably  helped  to  preserve  me.  One  feature  of 
the  Brittany  landscape  of  those  days  stands  out 


\-      ^-'-7 


The  postilion  sounded  his  horn 


THE  JOURNEY  FROM  BRITTANY     221 

clearly  in  my  memory,  the  tall,  sinister-looking 
telegraph-poles  that  stood,  each  one  just  visible 
to  the  last,  on  the  heights  of  the  country.  When 
I  say  telegraph  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  they 
were  our  modern  electric  installations,  although 
so  they  were  called.  These  were  of  a  very  primi- 
tive and  very  ingenious  construction.  At  the  top 
of  each  pole,  by  means  of  the  projecting  arm  that 
gave  it  the  look  of  a  gallows,  immense  wooden 
letters  were  hung  out,  one  after  the  other;  these 
letters  were  worked  by  means  of  wires  that  passed 
down  the  poles  into  the  little  hut  at  its  foot. 
Each  wire  at  the  bottom  had  a  label  with  its 
corresponding  letter,  and  the  operator  in  the  hut, 
by  pulling  the  wire,  pulled  the  letter  into  its 
place  at  the  top  of  the  pole,  and  was  thus  able 
laboriously  to  spell  out  the  message  he  had  to  con- 
vey and  to  make  it  visible  to  the  operator  at  the 
next  post,  who  passed  it  on  to  the  next.  These 
clumsy  telegrams  could  be  sent,  as  far  as  I  re- 
member, only  at  certain  hours  of  the  day,  and  I 
think  that  it  must  have  been  during  a  wayside  halt 
on  this  journey  that  I  visited  a  hut  with  papa  and 


222     A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

had  the  system  explained  to  me  and  saw  a  message 
being  sent,  for  I  remember  the  clatter  and  shaking 
as  the  big  letters  overhead  were  pulled  into  place. 
I  do  not  know  whether  this  method  of  communi- 
cation was  used  all  over  France,  but  one  or  two  of 
the  old  poles  still  survive  in  Brittany. 

Our  first  stop  that  day  was  at  Quimperle.  The 
postilion,  as  we  approached  a  town  or  village, 
sounded  his  horn,  and  what  excitement  it  caused 
in  these  quiet  little  places  when  we  came  driving 
up,  and  how  all  the  people  crowded  round  us  I 

The  inn  at  Quimperle  was  called  the  Hotel  du 
Trefle  Noir,  and  though  very  primitive,  the  thatch 
showing  through  the  rafters  in  the  roof  of  the 
immense  kitchen-dining-room,  it  was  scrupulously 
clean.  We  all  sat  down  together  at  the  long 
table,  servants,  coachman,  postilion,  and  all,  and 
the  dejeuner  served  to  us  by  the  good  landlady 
was  fit  to  put  before  a  king.  I  remember  maman 
laughing  and  asking  her  why  she  served  the  sal- 
mon and,  afterward,  a  heaping  golden  mound 
of  fried  potatoes,  on  a  great  plank,  and  the  land- 
lady saying  that  she  had  no  dishes  large  enough. 


THE  JOURNEY  FROM  BRITTANY     223 

There  was  a  turkey,  too,  stuffed  with  chestnuts 
and  of  course  crepes  and  cream.  Next  door  to 
us,  in  a  smaller  room,  a  band  of  commercial 
travelers  were  also  lunching,  and  as  we  finished 
each  course  it  was  carried  in  to  those  cheerful 
young  fellows,  whose  hurrahs  of  joy  added  zest 
to  our  own  appetites.  That  night  we  slept  at 
Rennes,  where  I  remember  only  that  I  was  very 
tired  and  that  a  horrid  man  who  came  to  make 
a  fire  in  our  bedrooms  spat  upon  the  floor,  to  our 
disgust  and  indignation.  I  remember,  too,  a  very 
pleasant  crisp  cake,  or  roll,  that  maman  gave  me 
to  eat  before  I  went  to  bed. 

It  was  on  the  third  day  that  we  drove  at  last 
into  Paris,  a  fairy-land  to  my  gazing,  stupefied 
eyes.  What  struck  me  most  were  the  fountains 
of  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  the  bronze  mermaids 
holding  the  spouting  fish,  and  the  little  sunken 
gardens,  four  of  them,  that  at  that  time  sur- 
rounded the  obelisk.  Bon  papa  lived  in  the  rue 
St.  Dominique,  St.  Germain,  and  as  we  drove  up 
to  the  door  I  remember  that  it  was  under  blossom- 
ing acacia-trees  and  that  the  postilion  blew  a  great 


224    A  CHILDHOOD  IN  BRITTANY 

blast  upon  his  horn  to  announce  our  arrival.  The 
house,  which  was,  indeed,  a  very  pleasing  speci- 
men of  Louis  XV  architecture,  looked  palatial  to 
my  childish  eyes.  Bon  papa  was  standing,  very 
portly,  on  the  terrace  to  welcome  us,  and  we  ran 
into  a  park  behind  the  house,  with  an  avenue  of 
horse-chestnuts  and  a  high  fountain.  But  Brit- 
tany was  left  far  behind,  and  many,  many  years 
were  to  pass  before  I  again  saw  my  Loch-ar-Brugg. 


THE    END 


DC611  B851S4 

Sedgwick,  Anne  Douglas, 

1873 

-1935. 

A  childhood  in  Brittany 

eighty  years  ago 

gQyjHER^i  RPriiriNAL  LIBRARY  ""^^'j-'lL 


AA       001  341  174        9 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CA  ,  RIVERSIDE  LIBRARY 


3  1210  00659  5589 


